


Flower Crowns and Other Neat Stuff

by FeelsGoodToBeUnholy (Trenchcoatsandconverse)



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Everyone Is Gay, I'm Sorry, I'm not using tags properly am I, Josh is just really misunderstood, Josh looks all tough and punk, M/M, Tyler is all pastel and stuff, once again I apologise, why did I make this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-30 00:29:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 24,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6400240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trenchcoatsandconverse/pseuds/FeelsGoodToBeUnholy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone is scared of Joshua Dun. Enter Tyler, who can't understand what's all that scary about him.<br/>-<br/>-<br/>-<br/>-<br/>-<br/>In which Tyler's the new kid who's pastel aesthetic seems to give Josh chill, Josh looks more hardcore than he actually is, and everyone is unrealistically gay</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is my first time writing with these characters so I'm sorry. I don't know why I made this but go read anyway it'll hopefully be entertaining  
> !!!ALSO!!!  
> There is a homophobic slur used in this chapter so you have been warned

Tyler walked up to the grey building, apprehension thrumming in his veins. It looked like a prison, although, to be perfectly fair, it kind of was.

 

It was his first day at the new school, and he had no idea how it would go. Would it be full of close minded idiots who couldn't handle a guy liking pastels (seriously, was this the fifties?) like his last school, or would it be better?

 

There was only one way of finding out, and that was going through the day. 

 

He smoothed his light blue sweater down, took a deep breath, and walked through the front doors. Immediately he was met with stares from the people milling around the halls. 

 

Some douchey looking guy wearing so much hair gel that if he went into the ocean he'd probably have the same effect as an oil spill called out, "Nice lipstick, fag!" Tyler flinched. Less than five minutes into being there and he was already getting slurred at. 

 

He was about to make a biting remark about exactly where Mr. Overuse of Old Spice could shove his Nike sandals and homophobia, but just then a boy with cotton candy-pink hair and a large amount of eyeliner rolled in between Tyler and the fuckboy. Literally rolled. He was wearing heelies. Stop him.

 

"Now, Darren, it is time to shut the fuck up. Don't you have some girl to harass on kik?" said Tyler's brightly-coloured saviour. The fuckboy frowned at him. "Dude, I was joking. I'm not homophobic or anything. Chill." A taller boy who Tyler had previously not noticed walked up to stand beside the boy with the questionable shoe choice. "You just used a homophobic slur. That is the definition of homophobia."

 

Darren shook his head emphatically. "No, it's just like an adjective. It's not offensive," he said, like that explained everything. The shorter boy raised his eyebrows. The tall one scoffed. "Really? You, a straight boy, are telling me, a gay male, what is and is not offensive to gay people."

 

Darren rolled his eyes. "Whatever man. I'm not homophobic though, I have plenty of gay friends and stuff." He stomped away. Cotton Candy Hair turned to his companion and highfived him. 

 

"Nice job, Mikeyway! We slayed a fuckboy!" He said enthusiastically. He laced their fingers together and spun around to Tyler, who was standing there staring dumbly. It was not every day that somebody not only stuck up for you, but kicked ass while doing so. 

 

A day that had seemed like it was going bad had been completely spun around. 

 

"Hi, I'm Pete!" He said to Tyler. "This is my Mikey Bae." The taller of the two stared in horror at Pete. "Never say that again. Ever." Pete shrugged. "I can't make any promises." 

 

Tyler blinked. Okay, then. "I'm Tyler, I'm new," he introduced himself. 

 

Pete smiled widely at him. "Welcome to hell! I love your sweater. Don't you love his sweater, Mikey?" Mikey nodded. "It's a nice sweater." Tyler smiled. "Thanks. It's like the softest thing ever. Plus, it matches my flower crown." He pointed to said flower crown in all its light blue glory. 

 

Pete stared at him for a second before saying, "Dude, you're totally like, one of us. You've gotta join our squad." Mikey wrinkled his nose. "Don't call it that, it makes us sound like eleven year old girls on Instagram. Nobody want to sound like that." Pete looked at him funny. "Literally no one cares, man. No one." 

 

Mikey stared at him for a minute, completely silent until Pete put his hands up in surrender. "Okay, it's not a squad. But, anyway, how 'bout it Tyler? Join our not-a-squad?" Tyler considered it for a minute before shrugging. "Sure, why not?" Pete grinned widely. "Awesome! Dude, the other guys will love you!" 

 

Tyler smiled nervously. So, apparently he now had friends after being there for, like, ten minutes. That was a new record for him.

 

"Um, I have no idea where my locker is, can you show me?" Tyler asked. Pete nodded. "Sure, what's the number?" Tyler handed him the slip of paper with his locker number and schedule on it. Pete read through it for a moment before looking up. 

 

"This is right next to Mikey's! You can be locker buddies!" Pete said excitedly before rolling off down the hall, Mikey trailing behind him. Tyler assumed he was meant to follow, so he did just that. It was rather hard to keep up with them, given Pete's wheels and Mikey's ridiculously long legs, but Tyler somehow managed. 

 

Eventually they reached his locker, sandwiched between one covered in sequins and one with a picture of Mikey and Pete taped to the front. Mikey had a small smile, and Pete was kissing his cheek. 

 

Tyler could already tell they were one of those disgustingly cute couples that were made to torture sad single people like himself. It was a safe assumption, seeing as Mikey had an actual picture of them being coupley on his locker, Jesus. Way to rub it in.

 

Tyler opened his locker and Mikey and Pete began talking about whatever as he did what he had to. When he was done he looked back at them and realised they'd been joined by a guy in a light purple hoodie. 

 

He had big glasses and he sparkled like it was part of his morning routine to take a bath in glitter. He noticed Tyler staring at him and smiled wildly. "Hello there, locker buddy. I'm Brendon, fucker of the Dallon," he introduced himself. 

 

Mikey rolled his eyes. "We don't want to know about it, Brendon," he said wearily, like this was something Brendon needed to be frequently reminded of. 

 

Brendon kept smiling a Cheshire Cat smile. "You say that now, but I can assure you if I was to stop informing you of our sex life you'd be cold and empty inside. Also, you wouldn't have anything to think about when you jerk it." Mikey sighed tiredly. 

 

Tyler raised his hand in an awkward wave. "I'm Tyler. I'm-" "New, yeah, I figured. I guess you've already met Pete and Mikey. PeteMikey. Petekey. Hey, I like that," he said rapid fire. Tyler had only heard him say, like, five sentences and he could already tell that it would be rather hard to keep up with him.

 

Tyler nodded, unsure of himself. Seriously, how was one supposed to communicate with other people? Tyler had no idea. 

 

"We have to get to class. Tyler, you're going the same way as me, so we should get a move on," Mikey interrupted any other chances of conversation. 

 

Mikey said goodbye to Pete (in form of a kiss on the cheek) and Brendon (in the form of a "see you later") and Tyler threw another awkward wave in the direction of the other two boys before following Mikey off in the direction of the class they apparently were in together. 

It seemed oddly convenient that he had managed to befriend someone who had the same first period class as him, but he decided to just roll with it. In a completely non-heelie related manner.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for for reading. If you're like interested in this let me know??? But like I hope it wasn't like really terrible thank you for giving me your time have a lovely day


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh comes in (sorta) more introductions yay exciting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with another chapter and it seemed like a couple people actually liked this??? Thank you and I hope this chapter's enjoyable

The morning went by in a flash of introductions and textbooks. He'd met a couple of other people who knew Pete, like some tall guy named Dallon who he sat next to in biology. In art, a boy with greasy black hair (who was apparently Mikey's older brother) walked up to Tyler and said, "You're the new kid Pete adopted, right?" which was an interesting conversation that ended in Mikey's brother (Gerard) sitting with him. 

 

In no time at all it was lunch, and Tyler was standing in the cafeteria with no idea of where he was going to sit. He stood by the doors looking confused for a couple minutes until Pete rolled up to him (via heelie. Seriously, somebody stop him) and said, "Tyler! Come, join the rest of the not-a-squad!" before dragging him off to a table with several other people. 

 

He recognised most of them. Brendon was draping himself all over Dallon, who was ignoring him in favour of the French fries on his plate. Gerard was playing with a short guy that Tyler hadn't seen before's hair. Mikey was talking to an even shorter guy that was wearing a fedora and somehow getting away with it without looking like a complete douchebag. 

 

When Pete got there, he cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of everyone sitting at the table. "Everyone, this our newest squad member."

 

"It's not a squad," Mikey said distractedly before resuming the conversation he'd been having with fedora guy. 

 

Pete rolled his eyes and sat down on top of the table, tapping the empty space on the bench that he should have been sitting on instead of the table (was he raised in a barn??) with his foot. "You go there. That's your assigned seat now." Tyler raised an eyebrow at him.

 

"There are assigned seats in the cafeteria?" He asked skeptically. Pete shook his head. 

 

"Nah, only at this table. We're special," Brendon interjected lightly. 

 

The short guy next to Gerard coughed something into his fist that was obviously "Pete's a control freak." Tyler hoped he wasn't trying to be subtle. If he was, it didn't work. 

 

Pete ignored him and pointed to fedora dude. "Tyler, that's Patrick. He's small. Patrick, that's Tyler. He's new." Patrick shot Tyler a friendly smile. He seemed nice, like the kind of person who radiated puppies and hugs. 

 

Pete pointed to the other short guy. "Tyler, that's Frank. He's small like Patrick. Unlike Patrick, he has a lot of anger pent up inside of him. Frank, that's Tyler. He's-" "New, got it," Frank interrupted. 

 

"Also, don't believe Pete. I'm adorable. Right, Gee?" Frank asked the dark haired boy sitting next to him. Gerard nodded, blushing scarlet as Frank pecked him on the cheek. 

 

Tyler blinked. "Is anyone at this table single other than me?" Patrick raised his hand. "I am. We should start a club," he said, highfiving Tyler. 

 

Dallon snickered. "You can spend your meetings writing songs about your sad singleyness and braiding each others hair while crying."

 

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Neither of us have hair long enough to braid, that obviously wouldn't work." 

 

Brendon smirked before saying, "Maybe you should grow the sideburns back. Then Tyler could braid those." 

 

Patrick narrowed his eyes before  
saying,"Don't talk crap about my sideburns, Beebo." 

 

"He didn't actually say anything bad about the sideburns," Gerard protested. 

 

Patrick glared at Gerard for a second. "He was thinking bad thoughts about them, though. I sensed it." 

 

Dallon giggled. "His sideburn senses were tingling." 

 

Patrick nodded in agreement. "Exactly."

 

Tyler squinted at Patrick, trying (and failing) to imagine him with sideburns. "You had sideburns?" He asked, still staring. 

 

Pete took out his phone and scrolled for a minute before showing the picture of Patrick, fully equipped with sideburns to Tyler. 

 

Tyler's jaw dropped. "Wow," he said. Patrick nodded. "I know." 

 

More lighthearted conversation followed, involving Frank and Pete arguing about which Way was better to date. ("Mikey's so tall! And glasses! And Mikey!" Pete had argued. "Gerard gives me sharpie tattoos. And he's soft. And he's Gerard," Frank countered.) 

 

Eventually, though, Tyler began to feel like he was being watched. He turned around and saw a boy with bright red hair look away quickly. He was alone at his table, and looked like the poster child for 'rebellious teenager' with his heavy makeup, dark clothes, and the expression on his face screamed 'angst'. 

Tyler already liked him. 

He nudged Mikey, who was sitting to the right of him. "Who's he," Tyler asked, nodding towards the redhead. 

 

When Mikey saw who Tyler was asking about, his eyes widened. "That's Josh Dun. You should stay away from him." 

 

Tyler's eyebrows scrunched up. "Why?" He didn't really support excluding and ignoring people without good reason. He's had enough people do it to him before and it wasn't cool, so he wasn't about to go doing it to some innocent guy because someone he'd known for a couple hours said to. 

 

Pete butted in by saying, "Dude, Josh Dun is scary as shit. He once knocked a guy out in like, three hits. And he looks like he's about to snap someone's neck at any given moment. You don't want to mess with him, trust me." 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "I'm not gonna mess with him. I just felt kinda bad, because he's all alone n' stuff." 

 

"Because he's scary!" Pete exclaimed exasperatedly. 

 

A heavy sigh came from Gerard. "Are you guys seriously going on about that Josh Dun guy again? I'm sure he had a perfectly good reason to give that guy a concussion. And a broken wrist." 

 

"I heard he had a cracked rib, too!" Frank chimed in. 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. It was probably just a ton of rumours. That's the way stuff like that always went. 

 

He knew his new friends meant well, though, so he decided to just leave it be. "Whatever, man," he said. 

 

The conversation moved on, but Tyler's mind was still on the red headed boy at the empty table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading I hope I didn't scar you too much with my bad writing have a lovely day :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh actually enters the story and Tyler is invited to a party sweet you should read it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back back again Ian's back tell a friend. (I'm Ian. If you were wondering.) Enjoy the chapter! Or don't. I can't make you do anything. (Although I hope you do the former)

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. Tyler met a guy named Ray who helped him pick up his books after some asshole had knocked into him, making him drop them. He stared at Josh Dun a bit. He really didn't do much else. 

 

At the end of the day on Friday, he waved at Ray on his way out before starting to walk home. 

 

Before he could get very far, though, his path was blocked by none other than Pete Wentz. 

 

The slightly disturbing outfit of the day was a highschool musical jersey, hot pink basketball shorts, and another pair of heelies. There had been a different pair every day that week. Please, somebody, for the good of the world, stop him immediately.

 

"Hey T-man! What's cookin?" Pete said enthusiastically. Tyler stared at him in horror.

 

"Don't- don't call me that. Ever," Tyler asked pleadingly. Pete really tended to do whatever he wanted, but Tyler hoped that if he begged enough, he might listen. 

 

Pete shrugged. "I dunno, I kinda like it. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about nicknames," he said lightly. 

 

Tyler waited a second for him to go on and tell him why he was there, but after just standing there in silence for about five minutes, he figured Pete wanted him to ask. 

 

"What brings you here, outside of the school that you go to, of all places, then, if not to give me a terrible nickname?" Tyler asked dryly. 

 

Pete frowned. "No need to be salty, my fine, tastefully dressed friend. I'm here to do you a favour." 

 

For some reason, Tyler had a hard time believing that whatever Pete was planning would be favourable to him, but he'd probably go along with it anyway. Despite being weird as hell, Pete was a really nice guy, and Tyler found himself catering to his questionable sanity. 

 

"What would that favour be?" Tyler asked tiredly. Even if he was playing along, he wasn't going to act happy about it. 

 

Pete ignored Tyler's tone and answered him. "I'm inviting you to a party at my house on Sunday. It's something that we've been doing since freshman year as a back to school thing. You're coming." 

 

Oh. That was a problem. Tyler was okay in relatively smaller crowds like the Not-A-Squad friend group, but in party situations his social anxiety always decided to make an unwelcome appearance, sadly, and made pretty much every party he'd been to a shitty experience. 

 

Tyler shifted uncomfortably. "Um, sorry man. Parties and crowds and stuff aren't really my thing." 

 

Pete shook his head. "Nah, I got you, it's not really mine either. It's just the guys we normally hang out with and maybe one or two other people playing video games and eating pizza. Nothing crazy, no prostitutes or mosh pits. I don't think my mom would be cool with that, for some reason." 

 

Tyler snickered. "Gee, I wonder why. If it's only going to be a couple people, I'm cool then. What time?" 

 

Pete grinned even wider than usual. "Rad! Come by any time after three. In the afternoon. Not morning." 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "Damn, I was planning on coming at the asscrack of dawn. I only have one problem with this. I have no idea where your house is, man." 

 

Pete giggled. "You were planning on coming at the asscrack... Sorry, ignore me. I'll text you the directions." 

 

"Sweet. I need to go home now, though, so if you could get out of my way, that would be great." Pete stepped off towards the side of the path. 

 

"Right, sorry. See you Sunday?" 

 

Tyler shot a small smile towards Pete. "See you Sunday."

 

\- - - - *dividery divider* - - - - - - 

 

Tyler was outside, which was a rare occasion. It was Saturday, a day that he would normally spend in bed, but his mother had forced him to go outside because she wanted him to actually know where stuff was in the new town. 

 

Tyler was probably just going to find the nearest bench to sit on and text people, but then he saw a forest. 

 

An actual forest. There hadn't been any forests in his old city, so he immediately went inside to explore. 

 

He wandered aimlessly for about thirty minutes before he realised he had no idea where he was or how he could get back into town. 

 

Whoops. 

 

He briefly considered texting one of his friends that he was lost in the woods, but he was pretty sure that would result in him being ruthlessly teased for the rest of his existence. 

 

He picked a direction and began walking in it, hoping it would lead back into town. That plan was going well until he heard someone singing softly in the distance. It was amazing, and Tyler (no matter how Disney it sounded) had to know who it was. 

 

He walked in the direction that the voice was coming from until he stumbled upon a clearing with none other than Josh Dun sitting in the middle. 

 

Sunlight streamed through the trees, framing everything in a pleasant green glow. Josh was hunched over a book, headphones on and singing along to whatever song was playing. The moment was just so aesthetically pleasing, and Tyler hated to ruin it, but he was sort of lost. 

 

His mother was probably worried. It wasn't every day that he actually went outside for more than ten minutes, let alone two hours. Tyler walked out from under the cover of the trees and behind Josh. He cleared his throat. 

 

No response. He walked over and tapped Josh on the shoulder, causing the other boy to jump. 

 

He pulled out one of his earbuds and looked at Tyler. "Um... Hi?" Josh said, surprise in his voice.

 

Tyler shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, yeah, hey. I'm like, kind of lost, so if you could tell me how to get back into town that would be pretty rad."

 

Josh just stared at him before shaking his head as if to clear it. "Um, sure. I probably need to go home anyway, I'll walk you back." 

 

Tyler smiled. "Sweet, thanks! I'm Tyler, by the way."

 

Josh smiled back at him. "I'm Josh Dun, though you probably know that by now."

 

He stood up before wiping the grass and dirt off if his jeans. He began walking in the opposite direction Tyler had been going, and Tyler caught up enough to walk beside him.

 

"Where did you move from?" Josh asked, still looking ahead. 

 

"Columbus. It's in Ohio," Tyler replied. Josh made eye contact with him, smiling. "Really? I'm from there too. We're like, Ohio soulmates." 

 

Tyler blushed. What else could he do, a cute boy had just said they were soulmates. "We should start a band and just sing about Ohio in every song," Tyler suggested.

 

Josh grinned at him. "We'll sing about snow in April and advertisements about incest!" 

 

"And corn," Tyler added. 

 

"And corn."

 

They reached the edge of the forest. Josh turned to Tyler, looking nervous. "Um, I'll see you around?" Josh said, phrasing it like a question. 

 

Tyler nodded. "Definitely. You're pretty neat."

 

Josh ducked his head. "So are you. And your flower crowns." 

 

They parted ways, each of them on the other's mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! So I'm writing some other fics rn (don't worry this is still my top priority) and I'm probably going to be posting one like either tonight or sometime this week so definitely check that out. Have a fantastic day! (or night depending on the time zone)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I took longer than usual to update, it's been a crazy week. I hope you enjoy this chapter!!

At about five o'clock (the time Tyler declared appropriate for parties) he knocked on Pete's door. It swung open immediately, revealing Pete's glittery face. It looked like Brendon had arrived, and brought his glitter bath with him. 

 

"Yo, Tyjo my main hoe! You're late!" Pete said cheerfully. Tyler scrunched up his eyebrows. "You said any time after three. This is after three."

 

Pete rolled his eyes. "I obviously meant to come at four. That's not so early that you look like you have nothing else to do, but not so late that you look like you don't care. Basic party etiquette, Tyler."

 

Tyler rolled his eyes while Pete skipped off inside (he wasn't wearing his heelies. Thank god). Why was he even friends with him? 

 

He walked into the house, closing the door behind him, and was greeted with the sight of Brendon and Dallon apparently having a contest to see who could stick their tongue the farthest down the other's throat. (seriously, ew)

 

"Get a room!" Frank called from the large couch that he was sitting on (technically. He was on Gerard's lap, and Gerard was sitting on the couch) before going back to watching the Mario kart tournament that was occurring between Ray and another guy with fabulous hair. 

 

Someone called his name. "Tyler! Over here!" Patrick was sitting on the floor next to an intimidating looking guy with a couple tattoos. (The town seemed to be disturbingly lax about giving tattoos to minors. Or maybe parents were more chill about it there. Tyler wasn't sure.) 

 

Tyler sat down with the two of them and Patrick smiled. "This is Andy," he said, gesturing to the tattooed guy. The tattooed guy (apparently Andy) smiled at him. Tyler completely took back the thought that he was intimidating. Andy's smile radiated sunshine and everything good in the world. 

 

"I'm Tyler. I'm new," he introduced himself. Andy nodded, "I know, Patrick mentioned you. I like your lipstick, it's a nice shade." 

 

Tyler grinned widely. "Thanks, man. It was hard to find a colour that matched my nail polish and didn't look trashy on me." Tyler lifted up his (light purple) nails to show the other boys what he meant. 

 

Patrick nodded solemnly. "Colour coordination is hard. I tried it a couple years ago, and it was so difficult I just gave up and grew giant sideburns. I'm still proud of them, though. They were a good thing." 

 

The one with the hair (not Ray, the other one with the hair) shouted at Patrick without even looking away from the TV screen, "Those sideburns were poison, Patrick. Shut the fuck up."

 

Patrick rolled his eyes. "You're just jealous because people remember my name!" 

 

Tyler looked between the fluffy haired guy (who was miraculously managing to flip Patrick off and maintain a steady lead against Ray with Mario Kart at the same time) and Patrick. "Um... what's his name?" Tyler asked Patrick quietly. 

 

"That's Andy's boyfriend, Joe. If he offers you a brownie, don't take it. Unless you can handle your weed. I can't, and I ate one. One second I'm eating a pastry, the next I'm waking up next to a completely naked Pete dressed in drag. That was not my proudest moment." 

 

Tyler shuddered at the image. "I won't take brownies from Joe."

 

Patrick patted him on the shoulder. "Good. That's good." 

 

There was a shout as the round of Mario Kart ended with Ray being pronounced winner. "Sorry, man," he said, shaking Joe's hand. "The hair gods must be with me today." 

 

The controllers were passed onto Frank and Dallon (him and Brendon had stopped tongue fucking and joined the rest of the party) and the next level began. Mikey broke away from the Mario Kart crowd and sat with the other three boys on the floor. 

 

"I don't feel like watching Frank lose at Mario Kart. What's happening here?" He asked. 

 

Andy shrugged. "Nothing much. We're just watching the tournament from a distance." Mikey sighed. "Pete hasn't ordered the pizza yet so I can't eat away the boredom. Let's talk about something." 

 

Patrick looked happy about the idea. "Like what?" he asked.

 

Mikey shrugged. "I don't know. How was your guys' weekend?" 

 

"I went to the record store with Joe. Then I worked on homework. Now I'm here," Andy said flatly.

 

Mikey nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting. Patrick?"

 

"I bought The Force Awakens. Then I watched it. And cried. And then I went over to Gerard's house and watched the Princess Bride. Then I went home. And then I came here."

 

"That sounds exciting. What about you, Tyler?" 

 

Tyler shrugged. "Nothing much. My mom made me go outside. I found a forest. I saw Josh Dun in the forest and I think I formed a band with him. And then I went to church this morning. And now I'm talking to you guys about my weekend." 

 

There was a united gasp from the other three. "You talked to Josh Dun?" Patrick asked. 

"You went to church?" Mikey inquired. 

 

Tyler nodded. "He was nice. Like his singing voice. And his face. Also, yeah. My mom has me go because she wants us to act like a family." 

 

Patrick looked shock. "You're still alive. How?"

 

Tyler shot him a confused look. "Of course I am, church isn't that bad." 

 

Patrick shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant. You talked to Josh. And lived." 

 

Tyler huffed. "Why do you guys have such a problem with him, anyway? What did he do that was so bad that he made everyone want to avoid him?"

 

Mikey sighed. "Tyler, I know you haven't been around here long, but trust me when I say you don't want to hang out with Josh. He's bad news."

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "You're literally only freaked out because you heard a couple rumours and think he's the spawn of satan. I'm pretty sure if you should be worried about anyone killing you, it's Frank." 

 

Mikey shook his head. "Frank wouldn't kill me. Then Gerard would be mad at him. He's very anti-violence. Also, I'm his brother. And if he's mad at Frank, then he won't have sex with Frank. And Frank likes Gerard sex, for some weird reason." 

 

Tyler was going to keep arguing, but there was a frustrated shout from the couch that signalled the end of the Mario Kart round. Pete stood up on the couch, brandishing a phone. "I will now order pizza. Everybody, shut the fuck up." 

 

Tyler still didn't know what was so bad about Josh, though. Maybe next weekend he'd go back to the forest and see for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! sorry this was a bit of a filler, hopefully there will be some actual plotty stuff next chapter. Have a fantastic day! (or night, I don't know where you live)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> okayyy so like i gotta warn ya there's some homophobic slurs and violence in this so if that's a problem for you but you want to know what happened ask me in the comments and i'll summarize it for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey i'm back! hope you read the summary because important shiz in it anyway hope you enjoy this chapter !!

Starting the week was like crawling back into hell. Tyler was about to die. Not only had he slept through his alarm and nearly missed his bus, but he'd had no time to apply any makeup, which sucked.

 

It looked like Pete and Mikey had done the smart thing and stayed home, seeing as they weren't at Mikey's locker (Pete tended to spend more time there between classes than anywhere else).   
Tyler figured if he ever did anything like that party with his friends again, he'd have to either plan on doing some makeup work or not go if it was on a Sunday night. 

 

He'd ended up staying at Pete's until well after four in the morning, which his mother was definitely not happy about. The only reason he wasn't grounded was most likely out of pity. 

 

Brendon was leaning against his locker looking like death. "Tyler. When I die, give Dallon my dildo. I want him to have a piece of me."

 

Tyler wrinkled his nose at him and opened his own locker. "Ew." 

 

"I'm serious. Mondays are a circle of hell that I don't deserve, man," Brendon groaned. 

 

Tyler shrugged. "Mondays aren't that bad. There are worst days. Sunday, for example. Sunday isn't a good day." 

 

Brendon looked at him funny. "Dude, Mondays are the shittiest day ever. What's so bad about Sunday?" 

 

Tyler shrugged again. "I don't know. Stuff just seems so much worse on Sundays." Brendon banged his head against the lockers. "I don't even want to be alive right now, T-man."

 

"Don't call me that."

 

"Like, seriously, I tried to get my parents to let me stay home, but they said it was my fault for staying out late. School is so shit." 

 

Tyler was about to agree with him, but just then the bell rung. "Shit!" Tyler exclaimed, slamming his locker shut. "See you at lunch, Brendon!" He called out before running down the hallway that first period was. Luckily, the teacher was pretty lax about students coming in a couple minutes after the bell. 

 

The rest of the morning seemed to stay in the same circle of shitty. He spilled paint all over his pants in art, got yelled at in biology, and to top it all off, he realised he forget his lunch at home and had no money to buy something with. 

 

His morning reached the peak of shitty, though, when he went back to his locker to see if he had at least a tiny bit of money to buy an apple or something. He'd admitted defeat and closed his locker when something made contact with the back of his head hard enough to make his face give the cold metal door a high five. 

 

He stumbled to the side and spun around, gripping his nose. "What the fuck?" He shouted angrily. Some jock Tyler had seen maybe twice (it was a big school) stood in front of him. 

 

Ignoring his question, the asshole asked, "Forgot your makeup, faggot?"

 

Tyler rolled his eyes, lowering his hand from his face. He felt blood dripping from his nose. Gross. "This about me wearing makeup? If you're going to slam my face into a locker, at least make it about something worthwhile, like me shaming your family or pissing in your football helmet." 

 

The guy growled at him. Literally growled. Tyler wouldn't be shocked if he turned out the be part bear. Or inbred. 

 

"This is about the makeup bullshit you have going on. Just because you're gay doesn't mean you have to go rubbing it in everyone's face," the guy said, edging closer. 

 

Tyler raised an eyebrow. For a person about to get his ass kicked, he felt strangely confident. "I've been doing it for a week now and it's been going great. It looks like you've been dropping the ball on the makeup policing thing, my man."

 

The guy smiled at him unkindly. Tyler wondered what kind of terrible genetics he must have gotten to make him that ugly. "I bet you think you're real funny. I'll show you what happens to fags who try to get smart with me." 

 

Before Tyler could react, he felt the impact of the guys fist in his gut, knocking the air out of him. He doubled over, coughing. "Jesus Christ, man," he wheezed. "A little warning next time." 

 

Before he knew it, he had been shoved onto the ground, and Asshole McHomophobe was kicking him right in the ribs. Tyler tried to hit the guy in the leg, if not to get him to stop, then to make him hesitate enough for Tyler to make a run for it, but he had no such luck. 

 

He cried out in pain, squeezing his eyes shut, waiting for it to be over. Each kick, coming in quick jabs, every time in a different place, was a fresh stab of pain. He tried crawling away, only to be dragged back. He awaited the next hit when somebody shouted, "Cut it out, fuckface!" 

 

"Oh shit," the guy exclaimed, turning and running down the hallway in the opposite direction of where the voice came from. There was the sound of footsteps coming in Tyler's direction, and he reluctantly opened his eyes. 

 

The one and only Josh Dun knelt in front of him, all red hair and dark clothing. He looked at Tyler in concern. "Fuck," he whispered, lightly touching his hand to the blood. 

 

Tyler pushed himself up so the he was sitting, hissing in pain. "Thanks, man. I appreciate you helping me out," he said quietly, wincing when he breathed to deep. Josh blinked at him. "Uh, yeah, don't mention it. Are you alright?" 

 

"I just got the shit beaten out of me. Other than that, though, I'm doing pretty great," Tyler said flatly. Josh grimaced sympathetically. "Do you want me to take you to the nurses?" he asked.

 

Tyler hesitated. He hated anything to do with doctors. There was just something about them, the sterile room and chemicals combined to make an all around uncomfortable experience. In his moment of hesitation, Josh continued speaking again.

 

"I wouldn't recommend it, though. They'd make you say who did it, and that could get you in more trouble with the assholes. Trust me, I know from experience," he said. 

 

Tyler nodded slowly, not wanting to move too fast. "I get you. How come the guy ran from you, though? If you're getting the shit beaten out of you too..." Tyler trailed off. Josh began to smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. 

 

"Even though all my friends left me, there's an upside to everyone trying to avoid me. The dicks are scared of  
me, too," he said bitterly. Tyler reached out and touched his arm in sympathy. "That sucks, man. Not the not being bullied part. The active friend avoiding part," he said. 

 

Josh's smile reached his eyes a little more after Tyler had spoken. A bit more cheerfully, he asked, "If you don't want to go to the nurse's, why don't we get out of here?" 

 

Tyler grinned at him. "Sure, man, although I'm not going anywhere very fast with my ribs feeling the way they do." 

 

Josh helped him up. "Don't worry about it, I have a car. I'm taking you to my house, my mom should be there. She works the night shift at the hospital, so she'd know what to do about your ribs." 

 

Tyler's eyes widened and he stopped walking. Okay, cute boy bringing him back to his house. This was completely platonic. For god's sake, his ribs were probably broken, of course Josh wasn't going to make a move. 

 

While he was having his internal freak out, Josh seemed to get about ten times sadder, taking his hesitation as him not wanting to come. "It's fine if you don't want to, I'd understand. I mean, we don't know each other very well, and with all the rumours about me-" 

 

"No, I want to come. Like I really want to come. I'm just weird. Lead the way," Tyler interrupted him. Josh smiled brightly at him. "Sweet!" he exclaimed, and continued to walk Tyler out to his car. 

 

Cute boy's house awaits, Tyler thought to himself. At least he'd be missing math.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and I'll see you next chapter. have an awesome day. or night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh's mom! More of the forest! They don't sing a chorus tho

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyy I'm back and more sleep deprived than ever. This is the first chapter that I had to read over a couple times myself because my beta wasn't able to do it so if you see any glaring mistakes lmk so I can fix them (i tried to catch them all but I'm currently running on caffeine and willpower so i might not have done so great) anyway..,, hope you enjoy!!

The car ride was quiet, but not silent, which Tyler was thankful for. Music was streaming out quietly from the speakers, too soft for Tyler to be certain what it was, but calming none the less. 

 

Josh occasionally glanced over at him, but for the most part there was no communication between the two of them for the ten minute car ride. When they got to Josh's house, he looked over at Tyler, a small smile on his face. "This is it," he said, gesturing towards the building. 

It was a nice looking house, if not a little small, with a well kept front yard and lightly peeling blue paint. Josh hopped out of the car and ran over to Tyler's door before he had a chance to get out, opening it for him. Tyler got out of the car slowly, favouring his ribs. 

 

Josh led him over to the door, taking out his keys along the way. After he unlocked it, Tyler followed him into the house, the inside looking just as lived in and comfortable as the outside. Josh gestured to the room around him after Tyler closed the door behind himself.

 

"It's not much, but it's mine. Sorry about the mess," he said. Tyler grinned at him. "It's pretty sick," he said. Josh ducked his head. "Um, you should sit down. It probably isn't good for your ribs if you walk around too much. I'll go get my mom," Josh said, pointing to a small couch. Tyler walked over and plopped down, wincing when the motion hurt his ribs. 

 

"I really, really appreciate this," Tyler said earnestly. Josh waved him off. "Really, it's nothing." He walked off down a hallway. 

 

A couple seconds later, he heard him speaking, and a woman saying, "What are you doing home so early?" Josh clearly didn't answer, and he emerged from the hallway pulling a woman who could only be his mother behind him. 

 

She looked like she had just woken up, and she probably had. "Josh, what are you- oh," she trailed off after seeing Tyler. "What happened?" she turned to Josh, tiredness gone, having been replaced with calm professionalism. 

 

"I was walking to the cafeteria, and I found one of the guys who used to bother me doing the same to Tyler, so I helped him out and brought him here," Josh explained. Tyler smiled nervously at Josh's mother. 

 

She swore under her breath. "I'm going to get the first aid kit, one second," she said before rushing off down the hallway once again. Josh looked at Tyler sympathetically. "She can't really give you the good pain pills or anything since we're not at the hospital, but she can at least make sure you'll be okay," he said, sitting down next to Tyler. 

 

Tyler shrugged. "I'm happy with pretty much anything. My mom's probably going to flip when she sees this," he said mildly. Josh's mom came back, bag in hand. "Where does it hurt?" she asked, opening the bag and rummaging through it. 

 

"My ribs and stuff, that's where most of the damage happened," Tyler explained. She nodded. "Pull off your shirt real quick so I can bandage your ribs." He complied and she went to work. When she was done, his ribs (which were already starting to bruise) were wrapped securely and, while they still hurt, felt much better. "Josh, could you go get some aspirin from the medicine cabinet?" she asked. 

 

Josh nodded and stood up before walking off down the same hallway she had come from. She turned to him. "So, are you a friend of Josh's?" she asked. Tyler shrugged. "I haven't really known him long, but I hope so," he answered. A grateful smile broke out on her face. 

 

"I'm glad to hear that. Josh doesn't really have anyone at that school anymore, not since... well, the incident," she said quietly, trying to keep Josh from hearing. Tyler frowned. "What exactly happened?" he asked. 

 

She shook her head. "It's not my place to tell you, you'll have to ask Josh. Just... thank you for being his friend. He says that what's happening at school doesn't bother him, but I know it does. I just wish there was something I could do," she said sadly. Tyler frowned sympathetically. "I'm sorry."

 

Just then, Josh emerged from the hallway. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his mother. "What were you talking to Tyler about?" he asked, handing her the bottle of aspirin. 

 

"Making sure he was good enough for my boy," she teased, winking at Josh, who groaned and rolled his eyes. "Mom, please."

 

She laughed. "Sorry, Josh. Here," she handed the bottle of aspirin to Tyler. "Take two. I'll go get you a bottle of water." She walked down a different hallway on the other side of the small living room, presumably leading to the kitchen. Josh shifted nervously. 

 

"I guess you don't want to go back to school, so do you want to, um. Maybe, like... hang out?" He asked, not making eye contact. Tyler blushed, then berated himself mentally for blushing. Josh probably just meant like, platonic hanging out. Between bros. He was probably straight as an arrow. 

 

"Yeah, I'd love to," Tyler finally said, his voice sounding a pitch higher than usual. Josh's mom walked back in the room, holding two bottles of water. 

 

"Here, have both. Judging by how your ribs look, you might need to take more aspirin later, so you should have some water with you in case it starts to hurt." Tyler mentally thanked the older woman. If she hadn't come in at that exact moment, he could have embarrassed himself in front of literally one of the cutest boys he'd ever met. 

 

"Well, if that's all you two need, I'll be going back to bed." Josh walked up and gave her a quick hug. Tyler just waved awkwardly at her. So much for not embarrassing himself. 

 

"Thank you!" he called out as she walked down the hallway. She turned around and smiled warmly at him. "It's really no trouble. I'm happy to help." She continued down the hall before disappearing inside a door. 

 

Tyler uncapped one of the water bottles and opened the pill bottle, taking two out as Josh's mother had instructed. He popped them in his mouth, washing them down with a drink of water, and closing the bottle when he finished. Josh stood waiting for him to finish,  
and Tyler reached for his shirt, beginning to pull it on, hissing as the movement jostled his ribs. 

 

"Um..." he said hesitantly. Josh made eye contact with him, waiting for Tyler to continue. "Could you, maybe um... help me with this," he asked, cheeks flaming up, while gesturing to his shirt. 

 

Josh's eyes widened, staring at Tyler for a few seconds, before seeming to snap out of it. "Uh, yeah, sure. Of course." He walked over and began helping Tyler put on the shirt in the least painful way possible. It went fast, with minimal agony, but the downside was that every time Josh's skin brushed Tyler's he felt like he was about to spontaneously combust. The Evansence song, 'wake me up inside'. began playing on loop in his head. 

 

When they finished, they just stared at each other for what felt like a whole minute before Josh broke the silence. "Would you be up to do some walking?" he asked. Tyler shrugged. "It depends, where am I walking to?" 

 

"Do you remember the forest we met in?" Josh asked. Tyler blinked at him. "That was two days ago, of course I remember," he replied. 

 

"Well, it's only like a five minute walk to the forest from my house, and I figured it would be kind of fun to hang out there. Maybe when your ribs feel better I could show you around there some more?" Tyler smiled wildly. "Dude, I am like, so down. Let's do this." 

 

Josh smiled triumphantly. "Awesome!" He helped Tyler off of the couch and out the door, and after a relatively nice walk (it had been a swelteringly hot summer, making the decent breeze that had been going steady all week a welcome change) they finally reached the tree line. 

 

The leaves rustled in the wind like they were whispering to each other. Tyler seriously dug the whole woods aesthetic. They walked through the forest, Tyler occasionally noticing Josh staring at him from the corner of his eye. It seemed like the wind and the sun filled any space that mindless chatter would have. 

 

Finally, they reached the clearing Tyler had first met Josh in. Josh walked to the center, plopping down and patting the ground beside him. Tyler followed to where he was, but instead of dropping onto the ground, he gently lowered himself down. He wasn't a masochist, after all. Pain wasn't fun for him. 

 

They sat in silence, until Josh lied back, pulling Tyler with him. He pointed up to the sky at a cloud. "That looks like a flower." Tyler giggled. "Are we seriously going to do the whole cloud watching thing?" he asked. Josh turned his head to look at him and smiled. "You bet. Now find me a frickin cloud," he demanded. 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes, and pointed to a phallic shaped cloud. "That one looks like you." Josh slapped him lightly on the arm with the back of his hand. "Shut up." 

 

A thought struck Tyler, and he sat up abruptly (although, not extremely fast. Really, pain was not Tyler's friend) "Wait, I've been wanting to ask you something." 

 

Josh looked at him inquisitively. "What's up?" he asked. "What's going on with the whole mass avoidance thing? Why does everyone have such a problem with you?" Tyler asked. 

 

Josh's cheerful expression faded. "I'd, uh... rather not talk about it. It's just- I don't like really having to deal with it." 

 

Tyler wanted to pry, but he didn't know Josh all that well, and if he said that he didn't want to talk about it, Tyler wouldn't make him. He wasn't the kind of person who would force someone to do something that they wouldn't want to do, and he could see that the question had made Josh uncomfortable. 

 

He resolved to change the subject. "It's fine, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. As long as it's not like, murder, it doesn't affect my opinion of you." Josh winced when he said the word murder. Okay, then. That was weird. 

 

"Anyway, did you know that Pete once pole danced on the flag pole outside of school? Brendon showed me a video, it was disturbing.."

 

Josh's uncomfortable expression went away slightly, although it still lingered. "Why? Is he okay?" Tyler shrugged. "Honestly, I don't even know anymore." Hours blended into hours, some of which they spent talking, some they just sat, listening to the wind in the trees.

 

Eventually, Tyler noticed the clearing beginning to look dimmer. He looked up, and noticed the sky starting to get dark. "Shit!" he exclaimed. 

 

Josh checked to see what he was looking at, and hopped up. "My mom probably thinks you murdered me or something!" he said, before helping Tyler up off of the ground. 

 

Tyler scoffed. "Yes, the guy who can barely take a deep breath managed to take you out. That makes sense." Josh shrugged. "Then maybe your mom thinks I murdered you. Either way, one of us is probably screwed. I'm normally home long before my mom would have to leave for work. It looks like she'll be leaving soon, though."

 

Tyler winced. "Dealing with my mom probably won't be fun. She's already mad at me for staying out late last night," he said. 

 

Josh frowned. "Do you live nearby? I could walk you home." Tyler nodded. "Actually, yeah. But you don't have to. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble." 

 

Josh waved off his protest. "It's fine, my mom would understand if I'm five minutes later than I already am. She wouldn't want you to get mugged," he said, leading the two of them out of the woods. 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm totally going to be mugged during my five minute walk through the suburbs." Josh shrugged. "You never know. Plus, I'm being a gentleman." 

 

Tyler placed a hand over his heart sarcastically. "Oh, it's so good to know chivalry isn't dead." As soon as they were out of the tree line, Tyler began leading them in the direction of his house, each neatly cut lawn looking exactly the same in the waning light of the evening. 

 

Josh hooked his arm around Tyler's elbow, like how people would escort each other to dances or something. In response to the questioning look Tyler shot him, he grinned. "I'm keeping you safe from brigands and thieves." 

 

Tyler snickered. "Good, those garden gnomes over there sure look threatening." 

 

Eventually, they came to a stop outside Tyler's house. "Well, I guess this is it," he said, gesturing to the brightly lit home. Josh untangled his arm from Tyler's. "Uh, yeah. I'll see you around?" he asked hopefully.

 

Tyler smiled warmly at him. "Definitely." 

 

Josh hugged Tyler briefly before hurrying back in the direction of where they had come from (his house was in the opposite direction of Tyler's compared to the woods), Tyler watching him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading this, sorry if there were too many mistakes. Have a great night! or day! depending on your time zone/when you're reading this!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler's mom and some explanations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so sorry that this update took longer than usual i was on a school trip and they wouldn't let us use our phones. regardless, I hope you enjoy this one! also my beta was unavailable for this so any mistakes are mine.

Tyler walked into his house, fully planning to just slip into his room and pretend that he'd been home for longer than he actually had been to avoid the wrath of his mother, but she was waiting for him in the chair right by the stairs, arms crossed and frowning. 

 

Tyler winced. Uh oh. 

 

"Tyler," she said slowly. "Where, exactly, were you today?" 

 

Tyler knew he was already screwed. He might as well try to get out of it, at least there was the possibility of it working and him not getting metaphorically murdered by his mother. "Uh... at school?" He said unconvincingly. His mother raised her eyebrows at him. "Really?" she asked.

 

"Yeah. Totally." He internally smacked himself. He was such a horrible liar. 

 

"Then why did I get a call from one of your teachers telling me that you just happened to not show up to their class? Quite a few other classes too, as it turned out." 

 

Tyler sighed. "Could this maybe... wait for tomorrow?" he asked. It had been a long day, after all. It was a reasonable request.

 

His mother didn't seem to think so, though, and she scoffed. "Tyler, I'm glad that you already feel at home enough here to start skipping classes, but this really is not the best way to settle into a new town. What were you even doing all afternoon?" she asked. 

 

Tyler shrugged, avoiding making eye contact with her. "Nothing. I wasn't doing anything." 

 

She gave a long sigh. "Unless you were doing drugs or something of that nature, it is not so bad that you can't tell me. What's going on?" 

 

Tyler bit back a sigh. He supposed he had to tell her about what had happened with the jock. He hadn't wanted her to know. There was just something about having his parents worry about him, or act protective, that just made him feel funny. 

 

He knew his mother, though, and he knew that she'd continue pressing him for details until he told he exactly what she wanted to know.

 

He pulled up his shirt, showing her the bandages around his ribs. His mother gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my god- who did this to you? I'm going to call the school, whoever it was is not going to get away with this."

 

She began walking toward the house phone. Tyler shook his head erratically. "Mom, no, I have it handled." She turned to him, eyebrow raised. She did that a lot. It was a secret mom weapon of skepticism and guilt. "Just like you had it handled at your last school? I'm calling the principal, Tyler."

 

"This is different. I have people now. Plus, I doubt they'll bother me now, because..." he trailed off. He didn't want his mom to think of Josh as some scary, intimidating guy. He was just a slightly disgruntled bag of red hair dye and eyeliner. 

 

"Because..." his mother prompted, gesturing for him to continue. 

 

"There's this guy, and he helped me out, and the assholes are... uh, kinda scared of him? He's really nice, though, and his mom's a nurse, and she helped me, and I was with him the rest of the day." He blushed when he thought about the hug, and the forest, and Josh, and his eyes, and- oh crap. It looked like he was catching feelings. 

 

His mother, of course, noticed the blush, because the universe hated him. 

 

She smirked at him. Damn her perceptiveness. Damn it to hell. "So, what's this mystery boy's name?" she asked. 

 

Tyler gave up on trying to keep as many details from his mother's clutches as possible. That ship had already sailed, she would find out anyway. He decided to just get the questioning over with as quick as possible. At least that way, he could go to sleep faster. He'd had a long day full of rib kicking and cute boys, and he was finished. 

 

"Josh Dun. He's my friend," Tyler said, stressing the word friend. He didn't need his mother finding out about his... not crush. Large amount of like that he had for Josh. He refused to say crush. He wasn't in first grade anymore, after all.

 

She hummed, clearly not believing him. Tyler saw his out. "I'm really tired. Can I maybe... like, go to bed?" She nodded. "Go ahead. Don't expect to get out of school tomorrow, though. The person who attacked you may have been in the wrong, but you should have called me or your father instead of taking it upon yourself to skip classes."

 

Tyler nodded. "Yes, mom," he said before going up the stairs as fast as he could without hurting himself. She could be so intrusive sometimes. He still loved her, though. 

 

He flopped down on his bed, lying flat on his back, before remembering his phone was a thing that existed. He'd had no choice but to leave his phone at home that morning, as he was literally running out the door. 

 

He took it out from its usual spot under his pillow, and turned it on to be met with an onslaught of text messages. He had about forty from Pete alone. Jesus Christ. 

He read through them all (there were actually one hundred texts in total, why were his friends like this), literally all of them coming from the Not Squad, spamming him with the question of, "Where are you?" 

 

Tyler simply used the group chat to say how he'd tell them the next day. Which led to another onslaught of texts (Brendon seemed to be having some sort of crisis involving fire, lube, and a ton of marshmallows. Tyler needed to find better, less insane friends, oh my god) until Tyler informed them all that he was going to bed. 

 

God, he was going to be so fucking sore in the morning. 

 

\----*dividery divider*-----

 

He was right. He was fucking sore. And his life was a wasteland. 

 

His alarm had went off that morning. Sadly. He walked to school well before his siblings. (As always. Except for the previous day. That had been an exception) He wasn't sure exactly why he did it, but it had been that way since he was old enough to walk to school on his own. It was pleasant, though. It gave him time to think.

 

He got into the school and made his way to the locker, keeping his head down. As much as he hated having to hide in any way from people, he figured he might as well lay low, at least until his ribs felt better. 

 

He wasn't going to stop wearing makeup, though. That would be letting that douchebag who hit him and anyone else who thought that they could tell him what to do with his own body win. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction. 

 

When he got to his locker, Pete was waiting there, leaning against it, Mikey at his side. They never seemed to be apart for very long. Tyler found it equal parts sickening and cute, but he supposed when you liked someone enough it took a while until being around them got old. Or maybe it took forever. 

 

"Spill. What happened?" Pete asked as soon as he saw Tyler. Tyler stood there and stared at him. 

 

"Could I maybe get into my locker?" he asked. 

 

Pete shrugged. "Depends." Tyler raised an eyebrow at him. "On what?" 

 

Pete grinned. "On whether or not you tell me what happened." 

 

"Do we seriously have to do this now?" Tyler huffed in response.

 

"Yep!" 

 

Mikey simply stared at him. He stared a lot. It was relatively unnerving. 

 

"Okay, fine. I went to my locker before lunch and some conservative fuck goblin decided to try to kick my ribs in for wearing makeup. Happy?" Tyler said sharply. 

 

Pete's eyes widened in surprise before shifting to pure rage. Even Mikey had switched his usual relatively blank expression to something that was a bit more pissed. 

 

"What? Who the fuck did that? I'll kick their ass. I swear, I will fucking shove a heelie right up their rectum," Pete fumed. Tyler blinked. "Uh, take it down a notch, man. Josh helped me out. I doubt the guy will be bugging me any time soon." 

 

Mikey sighed loudly. "Tyler, be careful around Josh. We don't want you to get hurt."

 

Tyler literally face palmed. He liked his little group, really, he did. But literally all of them, even the smarter ones, were complete dumbasses. 

 

"Okay, you can avoid him, I'll be over here politely ignoring that advice," Tyler said flippantly. "Can I get into my locker now?"

 

Pete ignored him, still angry. "I swear, Tyler, tell me who did it. They definitely won't bother you again when I'm done with them." 

 

Mikey rolled his eyes. "Pete, you're one of the shortest people in the school, and last time we had gym you started crying because you tripped on a bleacher and scraped your knee." 

 

Pete glared at him indignantly. "Mikey, babe, I'm trying to be threatening. You're not helping." 

 

"And you're not threatening." 

 

Tyler gently pushed Pete to the side and opened his locker. "I appreciate the gesture. It's just, I don't really care anymore? Sure, I'm pissed, but more violence won't solve the issue." 

 

Pete huffed. "You sound like Gerard. But, sure, if you don't mind, I'll leave it." 

 

Tyler smiled at him. "Thanks. And Mikey, I know you're just worried, but trust me, Josh really is a good guy. You just need to give him a chance."

 

He didn't bother trying to ask exactly what he'd done. He was still curious, of course he was. But it was Josh's story to tell, Tyler just had to wait until he was ready. 

 

Mikey nodded. "I understand. And I don't mean to sound like a dick, I really am just worried."

 

Tyler made a sound of assent before closing his locker. "I'm done!" he said. 

 

Brendon showed up and immediately launched into the story about his lube dilemma from the night before. They listened to him until someone cleared their throat from behind their small group. 

 

They all turned to see Josh standing there, shifting nervously. "Um, h-hey Tyler. I just, um... wanted to see how you were doing."

 

The other three boys were staring at Josh with wide eyes, even though Josh was acting just as wary of them as they were of him.

 

Tyler shot him a welcoming smile. "Hi, Josh. I'm a bit sore, but other than that I'm okay."

 

Josh smiled weakly. "Good. That's, um. That's good. I, uh. I wanted to give you my number? So, like, if you wanted, you could text me? You don't have to, I-" 

 

"Sure." Tyler cut him off, handing him his phone. Pete, Mikey, and Brendon stared at him incredulously. Josh put his number in the phone before handing it back to Tyler. 

 

"See you around." He said quickly before practically running off down the hall. 

 

"What was that?" Brendon exclaimed once Josh was out of earshot. 

 

Tyler blinked at him before responding, "I was giving my friend my phone so he could put his number in. Is there a problem?"

 

Brendon rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just let it be said, though, that you're playing with fire." 

 

Tyler didn't answer. Brendon began telling another story, but Tyler wasn't listening. Instead, his mind was on the warning Brendon had given him. And, he came to the conclusion, that if getting close to Josh was playing with fire, he was willing to get burned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for giving me your time! I hope you liked it, and have a good afternoon! or night! or morning! timezones, man. timezones.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some texting and stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okkkkay so i'm late on updating this but!! hear me out!! finals are killing me!! so, I apologise if this is a bit crappy, I had total writers block while trying to create this, plus y'know... finals. alssssssooo I decided not to bother trying to screw with fonts and shit for the texting because i do not have a computer of my own. this is all from my phone. fun fact for you. my beta was around for this one. mistakes are still mine though. I mean I am the one who wrote it. I hope you enjoy!!

Tyler was in that nice inbetween state, dangling in the balance between actual consciousness and sleep, the limbo that exists when you could be awake, but you'd rather just lay there letting thoughts bounce around in no particular order, when his mind wandered over to Josh and how he now had the other boy's number in his phone. 

 

Once he thought about that, he couldn't go back to sleep. Or whatever it was that he was doing. Something urged him to send a text even though it was late as hell. 

 

He lay in bed for a minute, staring at his wall until he gave in and reached under his pillow for his phone. He turned it on, blinking as the sudden bright light hit his eyes. He found Josh's contact in his phone and opened a new text. He stared at the blank message for a second, trying to decide on what to write. 

 

Sent 2:23 AM: are you awake?

 

Tyler didn't expect a reply, but he didn't want Josh to be confused when he actually did wake up to find a text from a number that he didn't know, so he sent another one. 

 

Sent 2:23 AM: this is Tyler btw 

 

Almost immediately after the second text, though, he got a reply. The buzzing startled him into dropping his phone, and he rolled his eyes at himself before scooping it up and reading Josh's text. 

 

Received 2:24 AM: why are u awake oml

 

Received 2:24 AM: anyway hi Tyler

 

He smiled reading the texts. Tyler hoped he hadn't woken Josh up, though. Sometimes he forgot that not everybody turned their phones off at night like he did. He thought for a second and typed a reply. 

 

Sent 2:25 AM: you're awake too 

 

Sent 2:25 AM: sorry if i woke you up tho

 

He set his phone down and stared out his bedroom window. The way his bed was positioned right under it made it so that if he lied on his back he could see the stars. The sky was very clear that night, and Tyler could see millions of stars spread out across the dark space. 

 

The moment felt special, like Tyler was alone in his own solitary universe apart from Josh. He tended to get a bit more... poetic than usual after midnight. Or off topic. It depended on who was describing it. 

 

He smiled up at the dark sky when he felt his phone buzz again. 

 

Received 2:27 AM: u didn't wake me up its fine

 

Sent 2:27 AM: good i didn't think you'd reply it's so late

 

Received 2:28 AM: sometimes i just can't sleep 

 

Received 2:28 AM: i was bored tho so thnks for texting me :) 

 

Tyler blushed down at his phone. He knew that Josh didn't mean anything by it, though. He was probably just happy for some company. It wasn't the fact that Tyler was the one who texted him that had made him happy. Even though Josh had kind of said that it was. God, Tyler was so lame. 

 

Sent 2:29 AM: no problem :) 

 

Tyler wanted to ask him something, but would that be too far? He wasn't sure whether Josh was straight or not, and even if he wasn't he didn't want to freak him out by being too forward. 

 

He bit his lip nervously for a minute before deciding to say 'fuck it' and typed up the message. 

 

Sent 2:31 AM: do you want to hang out after school tomorrow? maybe you could show me around the woods or smthn

 

He immediately got a reply. 

 

Received 2:32 AM: yis lets do it meet me outside of school when classes finish

 

Sent 2:33 AM: okay 

 

A sudden wave of tiredness hit him. Well, so much for staying up later than usual. Sleep was a bitch. Tyler blinked the blurriness out of his eyes as Josh's response popped up on the screen.

 

Received 2:35: sick as frick 

 

Tyler yawned. It looked like he'd have to cut the conversation short, which was a bummer. Even though it wasn't the most thrilling interaction Tyler had ever been a part of, there was still a ridiculously cute boy that decided to communicate with him at two in the morning, which was an unfortunately rare occurrence for him.

 

He didn't want to be a complete zombie in the morning, though, so instead of relishing in the cute boy interaction for as long as possible, he wrote his next text reluctantly. He hoped Josh didn't think that he didn't want to talk to him. 

 

Sent 2:38 AM: im going to sleep now tho see you tomorrow!! 

 

Received 2:39 AM: can't wait :) 

 

\--------*dividery divider*--------

 

Tyler leaned against the school building, watching people walk past. It was a mild hobby of his to just watch people as they went by, nothing serious. Just something to occupy his brain while he was bored so he didn't have to think about things like responsibilities or, even worse, school.

 

He just so happened to people-watch a lot during school. 

 

A group of freshman girls walked by, chattering enthusiastically about their day. Apparently one of them managed to light her homework on fire the night prior as an act of rebellion. Tyler was concerned. He wondered if she was alright. 

 

A few other groups of people walked by, a huddle of juniors who reeked of weed and a herd of jocks who shot him dirty looks. High school was an adventure. 

 

Finally, the person he was waiting for emerged from the building. Josh looked around nervously, red hair being blown by the gentle breeze, until he spotted Tyler leaning against the building and smiled widely. 

 

He hurried over to him, a certain bounce in his step which wasn't usually there. At least, not that Tyler had seen whenever he noticed Josh in the hallways. He normally looked as if there was a storm cloud constantly hovering over him, though Tyler couldn't exactly blame him for it. 

 

It couldn't be easy to be in some sort of exile from the rest of his peers for no good reason. At least, Tyler assumed it wasn't a good reason. Honestly, Josh was too nice to have actually have done something so bad that he deserved to be shunned. He just wished everyone else would see that. 

 

"I wasn't sure if you would show up. But I'm happy you're here! Let's go!" Josh said quickly, grabbing Tyler's hand and pulling him off down the sidewalk. Tyler giggled and struggled to keep up. 

 

"I don't think this is how we get to the forest," he remarked as Josh led the two of them into town. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the two boy's shoes slapping the pavement. Josh replied, panting, "We're making a detour!" 

 

They slowed to a stop in front of a hole in the wall coffee shop. Josh leaned against the rough brick building, gasping for breath. "I haven't run anywhere in like... a year," he wheezed. 

 

Tyler caught his breath before Josh and took a look around. It was not that small of a town. The street was relatively busy, and there was a decent amount of foot traffic on the sidewalks. 

 

Even though all of the people doing their afternoon shopping or heading home (or whatever else they had on their itinerary, Tyler didn't know them or their lives. Maybe they were on their way to a wild, cocaine fuelled party at a brothel. He'd never know.) were complete strangers, Tyler could still figure out which ones were conservative. 

 

It was frankly easy. All he had to do was spot the ones eyeing his makeup and other fashion choices (which on that particular day included a cotton candy pink tank top and a matching miniskirt worn over torn black leggings) and giving him dirty looks. 

 

Although, surprisingly most people seemed to take his disregard for gender roles in stride, barely batting an eyelash at him or his slightly intimidating friend. Maybe it had something to do with the slightly intimidating friend. Tyler preferred to believe that it was a sign of them progressing as a society. 

 

Josh finally caught his breath and pushed himself off of the wall. "Have you been here yet?" Josh asked. 

 

Tyler shook his head. "I haven't really gotten the chance to go into town yet. So no," he replied. 

 

Josh smiled triumphantly. "Good. I'm taking your Mo's Coffee House virginity. Let's go in," he said quickly before grabbing Tyler's hand again and pulling himself. Tyler's brain was malfunctioning. Mostly because Josh said a sentence that involved himself, Tyler, and virginity. Holy shit.

 

It was warm inside, and not temperature warm. The warm that you get with the right colours and furniture choices and smells. 

 

It seemed warm, almost like it was the middle of fall and the two boys were taking shelter from the cool wind rather than the end of August, with the only thing to take shelter from being afternoon rain. 

 

The floors were hardwood, and the tables were close enough to each other to make it a small space, but not crowded. Music that was actually pretty good (which was surprising for a coffee shop that looked like hipster heaven) was playing, and there was a bored looking guy leaning on the front counter who perked up when they walked in. 

 

As they walked closer, Tyler could read the name tag that was pinned to the front of his apron. The guy, Spencer, as Tyler read, smiled warmly at the two of them. 

 

"Hey, Josh. Who's your friend?" Spencer asked, eyeing Tyler curiously. 

 

Josh grinned. "Dude, I thought you'd be back to school by now. This is Tyler, we're just popping in real quick before heading back out." 

 

Spencer's eyes widened. "Oh, Brendon mentioned that he'd started hanging out with a new guy named Tyler. I'm Spencer. You've probably figured that out, though. Also, my classes start up in September, so I'm here for another week," he said, the last bit directed at Josh. 

 

Something in Tyler's brain clicked. "Oh, yeah! Brendon mentioned you, you graduated last year, right?"

 

Spencer nodded proudly. "Yep! I'm only in town on summer break, but I figured, why not make some extra cash while down here, right? Anyway, what can I get you guys?"

 

Without even looking at the drink choices, Josh replied, "The usual. But two of them. Tyler needs to experience it." 

 

Spencer grinned. "You got it." He went about fiddling with machines and making whatever hot beverage Josh had just ordered the two of them. Josh leaned over to Tyler and quietly said, "Spencer's really cool. He was one of the few people who still hung out with me after, well. You can probably guess." 

 

Okay. So apparently not everyone who lived in this town were complete morons except for him and Josh. That was good to know. 

 

Spencer finished and set two cups with giant swirls of whipped cream on the counter. "That's five dollars. You know the drill." 

 

Josh's eyebrows scrunched together. "No, that's not right. I ordered two. It's five dollars for one of those over priced motherfuckers."

 

Spencer shrugged. "Whatever. Think of it as an early Christmas present." 

 

Josh fished his wallet out of his pocket and took out a wrinkly five dollar bill. "Thanks, man. Text me, we need to hang out before you go back to school." 

 

Spencer gave him a thumbs up with one hand while grabbing the bill with the other. "Sure thing. It was nice meeting you, Tyler."

 

Tyler smiled. "It was nice to meet you too." Josh grabbed the two drinks, and led Tyler out of the shop. 

 

"Alright, so this hot chocolate is the nectar of the gods. I shit you not. Take one." 

 

Tyler complied and the two boys walked down the street, side by side. "So, into the woods we go," he asked. 

 

Josh smiled at him. "Dork."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! i probably won't be able to update until maybe like next weekend because finals are a shitty thing so :( but don't worry I'll be back!! thanks for sticking with me and I'll see you next time. Good night! or good morning. or good afternoon. honestly idk


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> basically a continuation of the last chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi again! it's almost summer break for me, so updates may or may not be more frequent soon. you never know. I hope you enjoy this chapter!!

Josh had led him past the clearing they normally hung out in, and the undergrowth had started getting thicker. Tyler eyed a particularly suspicious looking plant distrustfully. 

 

"There's not poison ivy here, is there?" he asked, continuing to stare at the plant. 

 

"Of course there's poison ivy. We're in the woods!" Josh answered cheerfully. 

 

Tyler stared at him in horror. "Wait, are you serious? You're leading to me to my poison ivy induced death, oh my god." 

 

Josh waved him off, hopping over a fallen log. "It's fine, just stick to the path." 

 

"What path?" Tyler asked incredulously, attempting to jump over the same log and failing. "Ow," he said from the ground. 

 

Josh stood over him, holding his hand to his mouth in an attempt to not burst out laughing. Tyler glared at him. That just made Josh even more amused. 

 

Tyler pushed himself up off of the ground. "It wasn't that funny," he pouted. Josh doubled over laughing. Asshole. 

 

"Your face, oh my god," he gasped. He stopped abruptly, looking at the ground behind Tyler. "Hey, look, poison ivy!" he said exclaimed. 

 

Tyler yelped and scrambled to get behind Josh, peering over his shoulder. "Where?" he asked. Josh turned around and leaned close to Tyler. Oh god, Tyler could actually feel him breathing. He whispered into Tyler's ear, "Everywhere." 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes and flipped him off. "So where are you leading me to, other than my impending doom?" 

 

Josh smiled slyly at him. "You'll see." 

 

They continued walking, Tyler humming along to a song that was stuck in his head. 

 

"We're almost there," Josh said excitedly. 

 

Tyler glanced over at him. "How can you tell? Everything in here looks the same." 

 

Josh shook his head. "No. Look, see there?" Josh pointed towards a large, moss covered rock. "That's not everywhere. Meaning we're almost there. You just need to know the landmarks."

 

Tyler snickered. "You're a proper outdoorsman. Ranger Josh." 

 

Josh nudged him playfully. "Shut up." 

 

He led them to some thick bushes that obscured whatever lied ahead. "Are you ready for this?" He asked, eyes twinkling. Tyler, eager to see what waited beyond the inconvenient shrubbery nodded. 

 

"Lay it on me." 

 

Josh pulled some of the limbs back, cursing as they poked at him. "Ow- okay, here." A path was sort of cleared as a result of Josh holding the branches and leaves back. Tyler ducked under the other boy's arm and frowned as his skirt got caught on the branches because he seemed to be walking through a literal hedge. 

 

"Dammit, that's my favouri- oh. Wow." Tyler trailed off, taking in the scene before him. There was a small grassy area with a few trees and wild flowers growing here and there, but, continuing to look ahead, the ground sloped and turned sandy, dotted with small, smooth rocks, gradually being covered in them the further down it went. 

 

Lapping gently at the pebbly shore was clear lake water, so pretty that Tyler literally wanted to leap into it and never leave so that he might absorb some of its beauty. It reflected the sky and trees around it, and a bit further down the tiny beach was a worn out looking boat dock. 

 

He could tell it must have been amazing when it was first built, but now it just looked kind of lonely. The wood had turned greyish and it sagged in some places. The railing looked like it could give you all kinds of splinters. It had definitely seen better days. 

 

Tyler thought it was beautiful. 

 

Tyler, too absorbed in his surroundings, didn't notice when Josh walked up behind him and began watching him as he looked around in wonder with a small, fond smile on his face. 

 

Tyler turned to the other boy. "This is... this is amazing," Tyler breathed. 

 

Josh smiled widely. "I knew you'd like it. There's all kinds of stuff like this all over the forest. You just have to know where to look."

 

Tyler looked back to the boat dock. "Is that safe? I mean like, to walk on and stuff." 

 

Josh nodded. "It looks a bit old and unstable, but I've been coming here for years and just hanging out up there, and the worst that's ever happened to me was a splinter."

 

"Who built it?" He asked. 

 

"I don't know. The dock's been there as long as I can remember. Whoever built it is probably long gone, or at least out of this town. It's a bit sad," Josh answered. 

 

Tyler shook his head. "No, I think it's poetic. No matter where whoever made that is, that boat dock is still there, a lasting mark they've made. Their memories are living in that wood. We just can't see them. They may have fallen in love there, watched their children grow there. It's amazing." 

 

A small smile broke out on Josh's face. "That's... really nice. You're good with words." 

 

Tyler shrugged. "I'm decent. I just say what I'm thinking."

 

Without giving Josh time to reply, he walked down the slight hill to the rocks, feeling them shift under his converse. He walked to the boat dock, and continued on, wood creaking beneath his feet. 

 

He got to the end in a few seconds (it wasn't too long and he could walk fast) and heard the moment Josh got on, the wood squeaking under the other's weight. 

 

He sat down at the end, that being the only place without the railing, and leaned over enough to see his reflection in the water.

 

He looked happy. 

 

Josh got to him and tapped him lightly on the leg with his foot. "Move over, I want to sit too." Tyler looked up. He was kind of sitting right in the middle. Oops. 

 

Tyler scooted over towards the side and Josh plopped down beside him, kicking his legs back and forth like a little kid. Tyler thought it was kind of cute, the way he wouldn't sit still. 

 

"My dad took me swimming out here in the summer when my siblings and I were younger. We probably would still go but... something happened." 

 

Anger surged up inside of Tyler. He knew what it meant when Josh said vague things like that. He normally was referring to whatever had happened to make Josh some kind of outcast. But Tyler would never have thought that it would affect Josh's family life. 

 

"Wait, what? Are you telling me that whatever happened made your dad not want to deal with you or something? Because that's actually bullshit."

 

Josh shook his head emphatically. "No, not- well... sort of. It's complicated, but not really what you think. I just don't want to-" 

 

"To talk about it. That's fine. I'm sorry for pushing." Tyler finished for him. He wasn't really sorry, after all, he was quite eager to find out exactly what the hell had happened. But sometimes apologies were necessary, even when one didn't exactly mean it. 

 

Josh smiled gratefully. "Thanks. For not pushing me to tell you. It's hard to talk about."

 

Tyler waved him off. "Don't mention it." He was glad he apologised. Josh would tell him in his own time, and there was nothing Tyler could (or would) do to rush him. 

 

"So, you have siblings?" Tyler asked.

 

"Yep. Three, actually."

 

"Really? Same," Tyler said. 

 

They continued to sit in relative silence for a while, and Tyler began thinking. He couldn't just let Josh be pushed to the side like he was currently. If he was going to be his friend, Tyler would be damned if he wasn't going to act like it. 

 

Josh wouldn't have to sit alone anymore, or have nobody to talk to. Tyler was going to get him some friends, and he knew just the right group of idiots. He had to play his cards right, though, to get the Not Squad over their bias against Josh. 

 

He could do it. Tyler had faith in himself. He just had to figure out exactly how he would do it. Oh well. 

 

Josh interrupted his plotting by pointing out the sunset. "We should probably leave soon. I can show you some other places another time if you want?" Josh asked hopefully. 

 

"That would be sick, totally," Tyler replied. 

 

They stared at the colours of the sky as they changed from light to dark and eventually faded away as the stars came out. 

 

"Alright, let's go. I don't feel like walking through the woods in the dark and subsequently getting murdered by a bear or something." Tyler said, standing up and dusting himself off. 

 

Josh rolled his eyes. "There aren't any bears here. Just like, coyotes and stuff." 

 

"Oh yeah, they're just disease ridden predators that come out at night and could eat me. No biggie." 

 

Josh snickered, but stood up as well and began leading Tyler back the way they had come. "Coyotes everywhere take offence. Now they're definitely going to eat you." 

 

The two made it out of the woods with minimal tripping and no animal attacks, and Josh once again walked Tyler to his house. ("I need to make sure you're not ambushed by suburban coyotes," he'd said solemnly when Tyler asked him why.) 

 

For the second time in a relatively short period of days, Tyler watched Josh walk down the sidewalk in the glow of the street lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! okay so since summer is coming up I'm going to have more time to write and that may mean more frequent updates for this (we'll see what happens) I'm also going to have time to work on some other stuff too. I already have some chapters written of some other stuff so I may be posting those soon. thanks for your time, and I'll catch you next update! have a great afternoon! or night! or morning! or... whatever other times of day there are... evening?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The not squad goes to a bowling alley and Tyler initiates phase one of his 'get josh some friends' plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took a while I procrastinated a bit (I was reading fanfic and then realised "OH SHIT! it's been over a week since I last posted!) this is a bit of a filler and we'll get back to the real plot progression next chapter but here you go! I hope you guys like it!

Tyler sat on the front steps of his house, tapping his feet impatiently.

 

It was already ten minutes past the time Pete had said he would be picking Tyler up. Tyler was hardly even surprised Pete was late, though. It was Pete, after all.

 

Even more time passed before Pete's pile of rusty metal on wheels (or, as the shorter boy liked to call it, his car) came to a stop in front of Tyler's driveway and beeped. 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes before standing and stalking over the car, gently opening the door despite his annoyance. He didn't want it to fall off the hinges.

 

That would probably make Pete at least sort of upset. 

 

He slid into the seat next to Patrick, who smiled at him. Tyler smiled back, and Mikey turned around from his place in the front seat. 

 

"Sorry we're late, Pete's car wouldn't start after we got Patrick." Tyler rolled his eyes, "Of course it didn't. It's like, fifty years old." 

 

Pete huffed. "Your mom." 

 

Patrick looked at him, concerned. "Pete, that makes no sense." 

 

"Your mom doesn't make sense." 

 

Mikey snickered into his hand.

 

"See, that was a good comeback. Mikey's laughing." 

 

Tyler leaned forward. "Actually, I think he's just laughing because that was absolutely terrible. Are you alright?" 

 

Pete shook his head. "No." 

 

Patrick nodded. "It's true, he hasn't been okay in quite sometime. I think freshman year, actually. His sanity just disappeared after that."

 

Pete shrugged. "I mean, I can't deny it. Anyway, are you exciting to go bowling, Tyler?" 

 

Pete had declared that weekend bowling weekend, so now the Not Squad was taking a field trip to the local bowling alley. 

 

Tyler hated bowling.

 

But, Dallon had mentioned that there was an arcade, and in that arcade there was air hockey. Tyler was a slut for air hockey. He was THE slut for air hockey. 

 

So, obviously, he had to go. And since Pete, Patrick, and Tyler all lived near each other, and Mikey and Pete were practically attached at the hip, it was only natural that Pete would drive the four of them. 

 

Also, Pete was the only one out of them that actually had a car. Even if it was slowly falling apart. 

 

"Not really. But air hockey, Pete. Air hockey," Tyler answered. 

 

Pete nodded understandingly. "I should have known. You have that whole 'air hockey slut' vibe going for you." 

 

Tyler clapped his hands together. "Exactly!" 

 

Another good thing that came out of the whole bowling fiasco was the first stage in his 'Get Josh Some Friends' plan could be launched. 

 

He needed help, and who better than Patrick, who was kind and understanding, and Gerard, who was the only one out of the Not Squad to not have some sort of crazy grudge against Josh, to help him with it? 

 

Patrick gasped beside him. "Tyler, you're not wearing a seat belt!" 

 

He looked down. "I'm not," he confirmed after a moment. 

 

Patrick slapped him on the leg. "Put it on!" Tyler just stared at him indignantly. "We're like, five minutes away from the bowling alley."

 

Patrick scoffed. "Oh, really? Well, I'll have you know that most accidents happen with a ten minute radius of the destination. So, you could die right now. At this very moment." 

 

"There are no other cars on this road. Anywhere." 

 

Patrick threw his hands up in the air exasperatedly. "That means nothing, Tyler! There could be a deer in the road! Pete's car could finally fall apart! You don't know!" 

 

"Hey, my car is at the peak of structural integrity!" Pete exclaimed. 

 

Mikey patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Sure it is. Just keep telling yourself that."

 

Patrick rolled his eyes, ignoring them. "Oh, for fucks sake," he muttered, unbuckling his seat belt. 

 

"Yeah, because what else would make me buckle my seat belt other than you unbuckling yours. Clever," Tyler remarked dryly. 

 

Patrick glared at him for a second before launching himself at him. Tyler yelped, struggling as Patrick tried to pull the seatbelt over his flailing limbs.

 

"Click it," Patrick growled, "Or ticket." He buckled the seatbelt, sliding back to his side of the car. 

 

Mikey turned back to face them. "Calm yourselves, my children," he said serenely. 

 

Tyler glared at him. Tyler glared at all of them. They were all assholes. 

 

The seatbelt was too tight and his arm was stuck to his chest. It also seemed to be locked in its position, so Tyler couldn't escape. 

 

Plus, the click it or ticket thing only applied when somebody was unbuckled in the front seat. 

 

"Fuck you. Fuck all of you." 

 

Mikey turned back around so all Tyler could see was the back of his head. 

 

They finally got to the bowling alley, and Patrick unbuckled Tyler from the seat. 

 

The four boys hopped out of the car, and walked to the entrance of the building where the rest of their little group was waiting for them. 

 

Frank bounced on his heels excitedly. "Let's go put on shoes that strangers have worn and soaked in their foot sweat!" 

 

Gerard wrinkled his nose. "Ew." 

 

After walking in and getting the (rather gross) shoes, they got the bowling balls that they needed (Pete ended up running after Mikey, telling him to cradle his ball. Tyler was permanently scarred).

 

The group split so they were on opposite sides of the ball return and, to Tyler's pleasant surprise, he ended up with Patrick, Gerard (and Frank, but he wasn't the one Tyler needed to talk to). 

 

After Patrick got like, his third strike in a row (what the actual hell) Tyler grabbed Gerard and him and pulled them off to the side. 

 

They had a little while to talk. Frank, somehow, managed to take forever on every single one of his turns. It was pretty convenient.

 

"So, I want to talk to you guys about something," Tyler began. 

 

Gerard nodded patiently. "What's up?" he asked. 

 

"You two are the most open minded people in this friend group, so I thought that you could help me with something? You can tell anyone else yet, though." 

 

Patrick looked at him, intrigued. "We won't say anything if you don't want us to, don't worry." 

 

Tyler smiled. "Good. So, you guys know Josh, right?" His two friends nodded. "Of course we do. He's probably one of the most talked about people in the school," Gerard answered. Patrick just looked at him suspiciously. 

 

"He's been completely cast out for a while and could use some friends. So I was like, who would be better than all of us?" 

 

Gerard smiled. "That's an awesome idea!" 

 

Patrick, though, gasped. "Tyler, he's dangerous! We can't-" 

 

Tyler was ready to interrupt him and go into exactly how awesome and sweet and absolutely wonderful Josh was, but Gerard best him to it. "If he was actually dangerous, I doubt Tyler would be hanging out with him. Be logical." 

 

Tyler nodded. "He's actually really great, Patrick. Just give him a chance." Patrick frowned and looked back towards the rest of their group from where they were enthusiastically bowling.

 

Frank's bowling ball (somehow) had ended up just... sitting there. In the middle of the lane. Zero pins were knocked down. Frank was standing there, looking lost. 

 

It was a mild disaster, but that pretty much summed up the entire friend group. Tyler had never liked a group of people more.

 

"Okay. I'll give him a chance. But only because of you, okay, Tyler? If I turn out to be right about this guy, I'm out of whatever plan you have cooked up." 

 

Tyler nodded understandingly. "Got it. Thanks, though, man. I appreciate this. I know what you think of Josh." 

 

Patrick shrugged nonchalantly. "That's what friends are for."

 

Gerard rubbed his hands together. "Okay, so, lay it on us. What's the plan?"

 

Tyler shook his head. "Not here. I don't want the others to think anything is going on. I don't think they're exactly ready to be convinced that Josh is not what they think he is." 

 

"Okie dokie!" Gerard replied cheerfully. 

 

"You guys should come over to my place tomorrow. We can talk more about this then," Tyler suggested. 

 

Patrick nodded. "It's a plan." Gerard simply gave a thumbs up, looking back over at Frank. Somebody who worked at the alley was retrieving the ball, and Frank looked slightly less lost.

 

"We should get back to bowling." Tyler said. The three boys walked back to their lane, and Tyler sat down on one of the uncomfortable blue chairs. 

 

He could hardly wait for air hockey. Bowling sucked, but at least phase one had gone over successfully. 

 

He could feel that this would be a good idea. Hopefully, Josh would agree when it came down to filling him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! once again I'm sorry for being a lazy piece of shit I'm finally on summer break so 1. i'm going to have a lot more time for this fic and 2. I'm going to be posting a few different fics too (some of them are frerard, petekey, etc. so keep an eye out for me) and I'm excited!! I hope you guys liked this chapter, sorry about it being a bit of a filler. i'll see you next update and have a fantastic day/night/unending passage of time!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there is a gathering, Tyler's mom needs to chill, and Tyler is fucked. Not in the way he wants, though. rip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took so long I'm sorry I just lose track of time because I don't have school so I'm just like chilling out when I realise 'oh! holy shit! it's been way over a week since I last updated this fic'! anyway, I have something that I'm going to tell you in the end notes so I'll see you there, I hope you like the chapter :).

Josh stared at him, jaw dropped. "You're kidding me?" He asked.

 

Tyler shook his head, smiling slightly. "Nope."

 

"They actually want to talk to me? Of their own free will?" 

 

Tyler chuckled. "It's not like I could force them. Plus, why is that so hard to believe? I don't know if you've noticed, but you're pretty frickin cool."

 

Josh ducked his head. "Hardly. And I mean, pretty much everyone is terrified of me. So, there's that reason." 

 

Tyler waved him off. "Patrick and Gerard are really nice. They're giving you a chance. Then we'll figure out how to show people that you're not some evil bastard, or whatever all of those other assholes like to believe." 

 

Josh grabbed his arm. Tyler felt like he was going to spontaneously combust. Josh didn't seem to notice his incoming death, and instead smiled at him. "I really appreciate this, Tyler. You're the best." 

 

Tyler blinked at him. "Uh-huh," he squeaked. 

 

Josh let go of his arm and Tyler shook his head to clear it of very non-platonic friend thoughts. 

 

Non-platonic friend thoughts were bad when the platonic friend that the thoughts were about was probably not having non-platonic friend thoughts about Tyler. 

 

He was probably straight, too. It would be just Tyler's luck, him having zero chance with somebody who was probably the most perfect person that he had ever come in contact with. 

 

Why couldn't he have a crush (god, he hated that word) on someone super available like Patrick. 

 

On second thought, Patrick wasn't really his type. He didn't even know what his type was, but Patrick wasn't it. It was a lot more like dyed hair, maybe red. Heavy eyeliner. Maybe his type had a nose ring, too. 

 

Oh, Tyler was so fucked. So, so fucked. 

 

He cleared his throat and smiled weakly. "Well, let's, uh. Get to my house, then. I guess you're driving?" 

 

Josh nodded. "I know where your house is, so it should be fine."

 

Tyler followed Josh out to the student parking lot where his car had been parked. 

 

He had stopped Josh on his way to the lot to inform him of the impromptu get together they were having with Patrick and Gerard at his house. 

 

At first, Josh had been reluctant. But Tyler had managed to convince him that it would be fine. 

 

Over a week had passed since his conversation with Patrick and Gerard at the bowling alley, and he'd hung out with Josh plenty since then, but he'd completely forgotten to tell him about the meet up at Tyler's house that was happening that night until right then. 

 

And the only reason he'd remembered to tell Josh was because Patrick had told him that he'd see him later on his way out of school. Tyler had other things on his mind, like replaying the events from two days ago. 

 

Josh had stopped by his house without warning, holding two disposable coffee cups and wearing a big smile on his face. 

 

Even though it was a Monday night and Tyler was exhausted, Josh had managed to get him out to the forest (In the dark!) to watch the sunset with him from the treehouse he'd shown Tyler that very weekend. 

 

August was over with, and Tyler was happy about it. In the fading light with Josh, he couldn't help to think about the way the red in Josh's hair was illuminated by the sun. 

 

He also thought that his hair would match fall colours beautifully. He couldn't wait for the last traces of summer to leave so he could find out. 

 

So, he couldn't help but be a bit distracted, because whenever he'd remembered about how he had to talk to Josh about the Wednesday thing, he'd begun to think about Josh, and then he'd forget to ask about the Wednesday thing because he was busy thinking about Josh. It was a painful (well, maybe not painful,more like irratating), endless cycle. 

 

The drive to Tyler's house was fun, mostly because a song came on that Josh apparently liked, as he turned up the radio and began singing along as loud as he could.

 

Tyler busied himself with staring at Josh, the way he smiled, the way he sang. 

 

Had he mentioned how fucked he was lately? 

 

They finally pulled into Tyler's driveway. Tyler hopped out of the car, and was halfway towards the front door when he realised Josh hadn't even gotten out of the car yet. 

 

He turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. Josh shook his head, hands still gripping the wheel, looking terrified. 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes and walked back to the car, opening Josh's door. "What's wrong?" he groaned.

 

"Are you sure they'll like me?" Josh asked worriedly. 

 

Tyler huffed. "It'll be fine. Come on, let's go in." 

 

Josh shook his head frantically. "I can't! I'm not good at this whole talking to people thing!" 

 

Tyler stared at him blankly. "You talked to me." 

 

"No I didn't! You talked to me! I just... responded!" 

 

Tyler crossed his arms. "Yeah, okay, let's go. Drama queen." 

 

Josh wrinkled his nose. "Okay, fine, I'll go. You don't need to be rude."

 

"Evidently, I do."

 

Josh (finally) unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car, taking his time closing the door. How he could even manage to do that, Tyler didn't know.

 

Tyler led him up to the front door, taking his key out before he tried the knob, finding it to be unlocked.

 

"Huh," he said, blinking at the open door. 

 

"Tyler!" his mother called from inside, "You didn't tell me we were having guests!" 

 

Tyler and Josh walked into the house to find Gerard and Patrick sitting on the couch looking mildly uncomfortable. Tyler's mom had clearly gone into 'overly nice mom' mode, and they both had a glass of lemonade. 

 

He was just lucky she hadn't gone and taken out the baby albums. That would have been horrifying. 

 

"I, uh. Didn't think you'd be home." 

 

Tyler's mom raised her eyebrow, standing in the entrance to the kitchen. "Really? So, these are your friends?" She emphasised the word 'friends'.

 

Tyler fought the urge to roll his eyes uncontrollably. 

 

Most of the time when he brought his male friends over, his mom either was completely cool about it (when he'd known them for a while), or was mildly suspicious. 

 

He didn't know why she'd be even sort of suspicious now, though, considering the fact that there were three guys with him at the moment. It wasn't like he was going to have a foursome with them or something, Jesus.

 

"Yeah. This is Josh, he's the one I hang out with after school." 

 

His mother eyed Josh suspiciously. "I'm going to bring everyone up to my room. See you later," Tyler said. 

 

"Leave the door open!" she called as he began to climb the stairs, motioning for the other two boys on the couch to follow him. 

 

Tyler was ready to die of shear embarrassment. His mother was evil. Pure evil. 

 

When they all got to his room and Tyler closed the door (his mother could bitch him out about it later), Patrick began snickering. 

 

"What does your mom think we're gonna do up here, have wild marathon sex?" 

 

Tyler threw his hands up in a 'damned if I know' gesture.

 

"No offence or anything, but she's terrifying. Every refill of lemonade felt like it was going to be my last refill of anything. Ever." 

 

Tyler raised his eyebrows. "How long have you even been here? How did you get here before us? You were walking." 

 

Gerard shrugged, pulling out Tyler's desk chair and curling up on it. "Honestly, I don't even know. I'm not going to question it."

 

Patrick nodded. "That's a good idea. Anyway, uh, hey." The last bit was directed at Josh, who was standing in a corner looking uncomfortable. 

 

Which, come on, Tyler understood that he was nervous, but Gerard had sparkly pink paint smeared on his nose and Patrick was like, elf sized, they were probably the least intimidating people ever. The only person who could beat them in the hypothetical 'least intimidating people ever' competition was probably Tyler himself. 

 

Josh waved at the two non-Tyler people, awkwardness practically oozing from out of his pores. 

 

"Okay, Josh, the tiny one is Patrick and the greasy one is Gerard. I'm sure you two have figured out by now that he's Josh." Tyler introduced quickly.

 

"I like your hair," Gerard said. 

 

"Th-thanks," Josh stuttered back at him. 

 

"Let's get this show on the road!" Patrick exclaimed, plopping down on Tyler's (small) bed. 

 

Tyler blinked. He had nowhere to sit. He settled for just sitting on the floor, Josh following suit.

 

"So, if we're going to bring Josh into the friend group, we need to figure out how to get all of them to trust him," Tyler said. 

 

"How will we do that? Everyone at school is scared if I walk to close to them. Imagine how they'd react if I suddenly started sitting at their table," Josh replied plaintively. 

 

"I'm not freaked out by you," Patrick argued. 

 

Josh looked at him disbelievingly and Patrick managed to maintain eye contact for a couple seconds before looking away.

 

"At least I wasn't after Tyler talked to me last week," he muttered.

 

"I was never scared of you!" Gerard interjected proudly.

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. He seemed to have been doing a lot of eye rolling that day. 

 

"It doesn't matter if you were or not, right now we need to focus on making the others not afraid of him," Tyler explained exasperatedly. 

 

Patrick nodded. "Yeah, right, sorry. Got a little bit off task." 

 

Gerard put a finger up like he was waiting to be called on. 

 

The other three boys in the room looked at him, waiting for him to speak. Gerard just looked back at them, not moving his finger, until Tyler relented. 

 

"Yes, Gerard?" he asked.

 

"I could talk to Frank. He'd probably listen to me. And it might take a bit of work, but Mikey would probably be willing to at least hear me out, too." 

 

Patrick grinned. "Yes, that's a great idea! And I could talk to Pete! Although, I don't know if you've noticed, but he's a bit set in his ways, so it might take a while to get through to him." 

 

Tyler blinked. "Wow, this is going to be so much less complicated than I had imagined. I have to admit, I'm actually a little bit disappointed." 

 

Josh looked at him questioningly. "Why? Isn't it better if it's easy?" 

 

Tyler shrugged. "I guess, but I was like thinking we'd have flow charts and the classic B-movie montage of us forming elaborate plans at two in the morning in a garage."

 

"We could still do that if you want. I'm not very good at flow charts, though," Patrick offered.

 

Josh snickered, his previous awkwardness gone. "We could even add an unnecessary, yet epic, fight scene.  
For legitimacy."

 

"Fuck yeah!" Patrick exclaimed, putting his hand up for a high five. 

 

Josh attempted to go through with it, but he was too far away, and ended up leaning forward with his hand outstretched until he fell over. 

 

Tyler tried to muffle a laugh with his hand. He was unsuccessful, and Josh ended pouted at him.

 

"Shut up," he said. 

 

Tyler ignored him and continued to laugh.

 

"You're a dick," Josh said, Patrick using the hand he'd previously had outstretched in an offer of a high five to help him up. 

 

Tyler shrugged. "You are what you eat." 

 

Gerard choked. Josh just blinked at him.

 

Once Gerard recovered, he brought them back to the original reason they were at Tyler's house (which was definitely not for bad blowjob jokes. Sadly). 

 

"So, that only leaves Brendon and Dallon. That should be easy, though. Dallon is nice and Brendon will be cool with Josh if Dallon is." 

 

Patrick nodded in agreement. "Okay, so now that that's sorted, I'm hungry. Is there food here, Tyler?" 

 

"I could order pizza. Unless you want to hang out with my mom." 

 

Josh looked at him with a bit of horror in his eyes. "Yeah, no. I think I speak for all of us when I say that pizza is okay. More than okay." 

 

Tyler stood up and searched for his phone. "Awesome! Is cheese good with you guys?" 

 

There was a unanimous 'yes', and Tyler scrolled through his contacts. He had the pizza place saved in his contacts. It was important. Don't judge him. 

 

It seemed like Josh was getting along fine with Gerard and Patrick, which was all kinds of great, because he liked Josh a lot, and he also liked Gerard and Patrick (albeit much more platonically), so the fact that they liked each other made him happy. 

 

Maybe the plan would work. He hoped it would. 

 

Josh was lonely, and that made Josh sad, and Tyler didn't like to see Josh sad. Because his smile was pretty, and so was his personality, and god, Tyler was so, so, so ultra fucked. 

 

Oh well. If he was, at least it was by an amazing person that was probably way out of his league. 

 

Not that it was very likely that he would be getting fucked by Josh very soon.

 

He couldn't help but hope, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyy!!! okay so I'm sorry for the wait (I seem to be apologising for that a lot). so I have a tumblr. it's called feelsgoodtobeunholy. so if you ever want to check that out I highly encourage it. I was going to post another fic today but I reread the chapter and it was kind of shitty (even more shitty than this fic) so I decide to rewrite it so maybe next week or something idk. anyway, thanks for the read, I'll see you next update, and have an awesome afternoon. or whatever time it is when you read this.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whoa bonfires and scrambling to explain stuff in one chapter and minimal dialogue this sounds really fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whooooaaa holy shit it's been a while. I would have updated sooner but i was having family issues which were really :/ so that kind of distracted me from working on this chapter but it's here now and kind of shitty. i made it with love though so i hope you enjoy it and thank you very much for joining me.  
> sidenote: I just realised that I started the summary and the notes off with the word whoa you can already tell how good this will be

"I'm just saying, the possibility of aliens actually being a thing is so much more likely than even the idea of zombies! Anyone who thinks aliens are impossible is a complete idiot and deserves to be left on a foreign planet for the natives to deal with," Josh exclaimed, pacing around the clearing completely lit by the moonlight and the already low fire.

 

Pete made an exasperated noise and rolled his eyes. "Do you understand how crazy you sound right now, my dude? Do you have tinfoil hats, too? I bet you go around saying you were abducted by aliens, because that's seriously how insane you sound at the moment." 

 

Tyler reached into the marshmallow bag absently for what was probably the fiftieth time, not taking his eyes off of the argument that was happening before him.

 

It had taken almost a week to get Mikey to listen to Gerard when it came to Josh (Frank was much more trusting of his boyfriend's judgement, it only taking him about a day of Gerard subtly talking up Josh before agreeing that he was awesome). 

 

Pete was a whole other story.

 

The combined efforts of Mikey, Gerard, and Patrick were barely enough to convince him to give Josh a chance, but, despite his stubbornness, after hanging out with him for about ten minutes he'd changed his mind. 

 

That was probably due to the fact that Josh had the most deadly puppy eyes that Tyler had ever seen. Seriously, he could achieve world peace. He was magical.

 

Brendon and Dallon, however, were much more willing to at least let Josh sit at the table, although, considering the fact that literally everyone that they were close to liked him, it wasn't very shocking.

 

All in all, Tyler's plan was successful. Now he was able to dwell in his angst 24/7, and he wasn't sure whether that was a good or a bad thing.

 

It was the first weekend after Josh sat with them at lunch for the first time (he'd managed to squeeze in next to Tyler, which was the cherry on top of the angst fest bordering on disgusting pining that he was suffering. At least Tyler wasn't forced to sit next to Pete's heelies, though, so. That was a plus), and they had all decided to celebrate the success by lighting things on fire in the woods at night. 

 

So, in other words, they were having a bonfire. 

 

There were s'mores, which unleashed a speech from Dallon about how apparently the word s'more didn't make sense to the point of it being offensive, which no one understood. But Dallon seemed passionate about his hatred of the word s'more, so they all decided to leave it be.

 

Then Mikey mentioned how bright the stars were, which led to a discussion about space, that inevitably brought them to aliens. 

 

Pete just so happened to disagree with the concept of aliens, and Josh disagreed with his disagreement. 

 

And that brought them all to this point. 

 

On one side there was Tyler munching on marshmallows, Brendon on his phone, and Dallon glaring at a s'more. On the other, Mikey and Patrick ignoring what was happening, and Gerard and Frank making out while the showdown between two with the strong feelings about aliens progressed. 

 

Just the usual.

 

It was quite nice, actually.

 

Tyler felt like he belonged which, to tell the truth, was something he hadn't felt in a while. 

 

The only thing that could make the moment better was if his little (he had no choice but to use the word) crush on Josh was requited, but not everything could be perfect, and he might as well be happy with what he was given.

 

Which was weird, yet awesome friends, a bonfire, and a rather unfortunate crush on a pretty boy with red hair. He'd take it any day.

 

Although, he sensed that the time to intervene with the (totally constructive and necessary) argument taking place had come, and he stood up on his chair. 

 

"Silence!" he shouted. 

 

Pete and Josh ignored him.

 

"Seriously, shut the fuck up!" he shouted again, slightly louder. 

 

This time, they listened. 

 

"Both of you are wrong," he declared, earning indignant noises from both parties. 

 

Tyler laughed. "I'm just fucking with you, Josh is right, aliens are totally a thing, go fuck yourself, Pete."

 

Pete frowned. Josh cheered triumphantly, which just turned Pete's frown into a full on scowl.

 

"Of course you take his side," Pete muttered grumpily, crossing his arms. 

 

Tyler raised an eyebrow at him. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked defensively. 

 

"Nothing!" said everyone in unison (except for Tyler and Josh, who just looked confused and, in Tyler's case, mildly suspicious). 

 

Tyler was going to ask them about their mildly suspicious behaviour, but Mikey (damn him) diverted his attention by opening his arms in invitation. "It's okay, Pete. I still love you even though you're a nonbelieving idiot." 

 

Pete ignored the 'idiot' part of the sentence, instead focusing on the 'love' bit, and stalked over before flopping onto his boyfriends lap with a gruff "Love you, too."

 

Tyler got down from his soapbox (chair) and tried to resist the urge to puke. If he ever dated, he would never be as disgusting as the two of them. And if he was, he mentally gave permission to anyone who would be willing to put him down. 

 

If, when Halloween came around, they ended up going with a couples costume, Tyler was going to strongly consider murdering them. Or consider murdering them even more strongly than he usually did. Whatever. 

 

Of course, knowing the two of them, they'd probably already arranged for a joint coffin, if that was even a thing. If it didn't already exist, Pete and Mikey were probably going to be the ones to make it happen, though.

 

As he glared at the two of them, who were now making out (fucking disgusting, they needed to stop immediately), he got the sensation that he was being watched. In fact, it was reminiscent of the feeling of being watched he got on the first day of school.

 

He looked over at Josh, to see if this situation was a complete repeat of that time at lunch that happened what he would say, if this were some sort of chaptered story (which it clearly wasn't), nine chapters ago, but when his eyes found Josh, he was staring off intently into the completely dark, hard to see forest that was surrounding them. 

 

His face was red, though. 

 

Tyler found himself wondering if he was too close to the fire. If he was, he should move. If he overheated it would probably be uncomfortable, and Tyler wanted this to be a fun experience for all of them, and he definitely didn't want Josh to remember this as the time he got some weird, fire transmitted sunburn... thing in the woods with a bunch of weirdos. 

 

As he was contemplating whether or not he should grab Josh a bottle of water (Tyler was sure there had to be one lying around somewhere), Josh glanced over at him, and, upon noticing Tyler looking at him, his face got even redder. 

 

It was practically the same shade as his hair at that point (or at least it looked like it in the particular lighting they were in, it may not have been that exact shade of red, although if it wasn't, it was pretty close). 

 

Tyler was briefly alarmed, before realising, hey, wait, Josh got all red when he'd noticed Tyler looking at him. 

 

Which, no. Just no. 

 

It was probably just a coincidence, and Tyler would be damned if he let himself wander down that train of thought. That amazing and sadly unattainable train of thought. 

 

He looked away and resolved to not look back over there under any circumstances. Josh and his possible fire transmitted sunburn thing could go to hell for all he cared and he would not. Look. Over. 

 

He attempted to pay attention to what Pete and Brendon were talking about, which was something about the pros and cons of Pepe and whether Dat Boi was danker (what???), but it was just so uninteresting at the moment (which was unusual for him, because normally he was more than down to talk about memes) that he tuned out and looked back over at Josh. 

 

Someone end his suffering. Please. 

 

After looking back over at Josh an infinite amount of times, he grew tired (of both trying to pretend that Josh, with the firelight illuminating his face, wasn't the most amazingly beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on and of being awake).

 

In between his initial decision to stop looking at Josh (and the near immediate failure of maintaining that decision) Josh had managed to get closer and closer, and it was no surprise that by the time Tyler could no longer keep his eyes open anymore that it was Josh's shoulder that his head ended up propped up on. 

 

And, if Patrick ended up taking pictures of them and sending it to everyone present in the most discreet and tactful way possible (giggling like an idiot while Josh rolled his eyes), well, Tyler was asleep, so he didn't need to know anything about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so things i have to talk about before i go:  
> the most important thing i have to say is in the near future (maybe a couple weeks) i am going to be gone, with no electronics or Internet for two weeks so i will be unable to update this until early August (which just so happens to be around the the time im starting school again so that'll be fun) but i just wanted to give a heads up. i am not quitting this fic! I will see it through!  
> 2\. so i have a couple other fics coming up and I know I've been saying that a lot and I would have posted one had there not been family bullshit that prevented me from focusing on much writing wise so hopefully with the next update i'll be able to shamelessly self promo at least one of those on here  
> 3\. as i mentioned i have a tumblr now, it's called feelsgoodtobeunholy, come say hi or something i am very lonely and it will make me happy thank you
> 
> that's all!! i'll see you next update and have a great rest of the night or something idk


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you guys will probably like this one a lot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey sorry this took a lil bit longer than a week i'll explin in the end notes anyway i hope you enjoy!! gee whiz we're really reaching home stretch. crazy.

The rain pounded against the widow sill. It was to the point where it literally looked it the house was underwater. Tyler could just make out the shape of the trees whipping around in the wind. It was so erratic that there was a creeping sense of worry that they'd just... snap. 

 

Take out the house, or something. 

 

As he mulling over the probability of his survival after something like that, there was a banging coming from his window. It scared him so badly that he fell out of bed, staring at the window with wide eyes. 

 

There was a figure perched on the sill, and whoever it was banged on it once again. 

 

He debated between shouting for his parents of just straight up calling the police before a familiar voice called out, "Tyler! Let me in!"

 

Josh. 

 

Tyler scrambled to get to the window, unlatching it and throwing it open, letting Josh tumble onto the bed, although he ended up rolling off and flopping onto the floor with a wet smacking sound. 

 

He closed the window immediately after, of course. He preferred to not have to explain to his mother about why there was already water damage in a house they'd barely lived in for a month. Although, he might have to do that regardless of whether the window was open or closed, seeing as Josh was already forming a bit of a puddle in the spot he was lying in.

 

"What the hell, dude?" Tyler asked. 

 

Josh took a minute to answer him, still trying to catch his breath. "Uh... I wanted to talk to you?" 

 

Tyler blinked at him. "We have phones. You didn't have to scale the side of my house while it's torrentially raining." 

 

Josh shook his head, pushing himself up off of the floor. "No, this isn't really a phone conversation. Do you, like, have a towel or something, though? I think I got a bit... wet." 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "I can see that. Follow me," he said, hopping off of the bed and opening the door to his room as quietly as possible before continuing down the hallway to the linen closet.

 

He could hear Josh dripping onto the floor behind him, and he took out about three towels and shoved them into Josh's arms.

 

"Could you possibly, uh, stop dripping?" 

 

Josh just stared at him. "No? I don't really have control of it." 

 

Tyler sighed. "I thought not. I think I have some clothes that would fit you. So you can stop ruining my floor." 

 

Josh nodded. "Okay. That's fine." 

 

They walked back to Tyler's room, Josh closing the door behind him. 

 

Tyler flipped the light on his desk lamp on and walked to his dresser, rifling through it before he found a shirt that looked like it would fit Josh. 

 

They were around the same size, but Tyler was a bit taller than Josh, so pretty much all of his shirts would be too big. He also found a pair of sweatpants, and he tossed them over to the other boy, who immediately took off his shirt. 

 

Tyler, in an attempt to not die, spun around as quickly as possible and faced his wall until Josh laughed and said, "I'm dressed now, you can turn around." 

 

Tyler complied. 

 

The sweatpants were long on him and the bottoms were completely on the floor, but the shirt fit pretty well. 

 

Tyler noticed that Josh's usual heavy eye makeup had run down his cheeks. 

 

Josh had dropped one of the towels on the bed and was using another one to dry out his hair. The third was on the ground, acting as a barrier between his wet clothes and the floor. 

 

Tyler walked over, grabbing the towel that was on his bed and using his free hand to tilt Josh's face towards him.

 

A faint pink spread across the other boys cheeks. "What- what are you doing?" he squeaked.

 

"Your eyeliner ran," Tyler replied absentmindedly. He wiped at Josh's cheeks with the towel. 

 

"Oh- I uh, I thought you were going to-" Josh cut himself off. "Never mind."

 

As soon as Tyler figured that he had gotten as much off as he could, he stepped back and asked, "What were saying?" 

 

Josh shook his head. "It was nothing." 

Tyler accepted the answer without further questioning (in his defence, he was really tired), and just dropped the towel onto the floor with the others, kicking the pile out of the way. 

 

"I can take care of that later," he explained, going to sit back down on the bed. 

 

Josh tossed the hair towel over so it could join its fabricy brethren and sat down next to him. 

 

Tyler watched him out the window where the rain was still falling just as hard as before. 

 

"So, are you going to tell me what was so important that you had to climb up the side of my house? How did you even get up here in the first place?" Tyler asked. 

 

"There's a gutter right next to your window. It's not to hard to climb if you're determined enough." 

 

Tyler blinked at him. "You're an idiot, you know that?" 

 

Josh shrugged. "So I've been told."

 

"You didn't answer my question. Why are you here?" 

 

Josh didn't meet his eye. "I wanted to see you," he answered.

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "You see me all the time. What was so special about right now?" 

 

Josh didn't say anything. They sat in the quiet, the sound of the rain the only noise in the room, apart from Tyler's own heartbeat. Although, it was probably just him that heard that, unless Josh had some kind of super hearing. 

 

Eventually, even the sound of the rain died out, and Tyler was wondering if it would be rude if he fell asleep before Josh decided to finally explain to him what was going on. His eyes were starting to get heavy.

 

Just as he was about to tell Josh that he needed to hurry up with the conversation that apparently was too important for a phone call (but not important for an actual conversation), Josh stood up.

 

"Come on, let's go out."

 

Tyler raised an eyebrow. "Uh, what?" 

 

"The rain stopped, and you should see the lake at night. It's really amazing." 

 

Tyler stood up. "Yeah, but... the woods. At night. Isn't that, like, dangerous? And the trees will be dripping, and what if we get mugged-"

 

Josh interrupted him. "Come on, live a little! Plus, I'll be there, so if any coyotes or angry soccer moms try to attack, I'll protect you. I promise." 

 

Tyler blinked at him. "Wow, thanks. I feel so much better about this now," he said dryly. 

 

Josh deployed the puppy dog eyes. Uh oh. There went Tyler's resolve, right out the window. 

 

"Please, Tyler? Please? It'll be so fun, you'll love it, please," he begged.

 

Tyler was going to say no, he honestly was, but Josh looked so hopeful, and really, what would be so bad about a little walk in the woods?

 

"Fine," Tyler said, and that was how he found himself trekking through a soaking wet forest at two in the morning. 

 

He almost tripped and fell into the mud like, five times every ten minutes, Josh managing to catch him every time (thankfully, otherwise there would be hell to pay). 

 

By the time they reached the lake, Tyler was cold, and wet, and a little bit miserable, but that all went away as soon as he had a look around. 

 

It was like he was there for the first time again.

 

Everything shone with a bit of silver, the moonlight making everything look a little different, a little more special.

 

The moon reflected on the perfectly still lake, and the stars were just as bright.

 

It was... amazing. 

 

The little boat dock glistened in the dim light. The cool breeze brought the smell of rain and some sort of flower that Tyler had never noticed there before. 

 

Josh grabbed his hand and led him over to the dock, where the two of them sat in their usual spot at the very end. 

 

They sat there, kicking their legs over the water for a little while before Josh broke the silence.

 

"I'm ready to tell you. Why I came." 

 

Tyler looked over at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue.

 

"Remember how I told you my dad took me out here before what happened happened?" 

 

Tyler nodded. He was pretty sure he knew where this was going, and his suspicions were proven to be true when Josh continued talking.

 

"I'm ready. To tell you what happened." 

 

Tyler gaped at him. "Y-you don't need to do that. If you're not comfortable, or-" 

 

Josh shook his head. "No, it's fine. I want you to know."

 

Tyler pressed his lips together. "Okay. As long as you're sure."

 

Josh nodded. "I'm completely sure. I trust you."

 

Tyler's heart swelled a bit at that. Josh trusted him. 

 

The feeling went away as Josh started his story, though. He could tell that this conversation would call for more of a somber attitude. This wasn't the time for his little crush.

 

"When I was younger, my family and I were really close. So, when I was fifteen and I came out to them, I didn't expect the reaction to be too bad. And it wasn't. Except for my dad. He kind of... uh. He kind of flipped."

 

Tyler grimaced. "I'm sorry, that really sucks." 

 

Josh waved him off. "I'm over it now. I don't hold it against him. I can't." 

 

Well, that meant Josh was gay. Tyler knew the story wasn't over, and it wasn't the time for celebration. He had the feeling that would be a bit insensitive. So he kept his mouth shut as Josh continued, swallowing down the initial sense of triumph.

 

"He said some things I'd rather forget, and I punched him. It was pretty hard, I think I almost broke his nose," Josh laughed humourlessly.

 

"We were outside, and I guess some of the neighbours heard the arguing, and they came out just in time to see me punch my dad. I ran back into the house, and I was holed up in my room the rest of the day."

 

Tyler looked at him sympathetically, but didn't interrupt. 

 

"That night, my dad came to talk to me. I guess my mom had spoke to him or something, and he wanted to apologise. We went for a drive, to talk the whole thing out. It was rainy. The roads were wet, I said something, and he turned to look at me. I guess I shouldn't have distracted him though, because the wheels slipped or something and we went off road into the trees." 

 

Tyler's eyes widened. "Oh my god," he muttered. Josh ignored the outburst.

 

"It wasn't that bad, actually. I got out of it with only a sprained wrist and a concussion. My dad, though, hit his head really hard. Too hard. He, uh," Josh stopped, his voice strained. "He didn't make it." 

 

Tyler leaned over to hug him. "I'm so sorry, Josh. That really, really sucks." 

 

Josh laughed bitterly, the sound muffled by Tyler's shoulder. "That isn't the end of it. Obviously."

 

Tyler let go of him, frowning.

 

"So, after a while, I went back to school. Initially, people were sympathetic, telling me the classic 'I'm sorry for your loss' stuff. But, apparently, someone found out about my dad and I's fight, and started spreading the rumour that I made him crash the car. Like, on purpose." 

 

Tyler furrowed his eyebrows. "What? And people actually believed that?" 

 

Josh shook his head. "No, not at first. But then some dick was giving me a hard time about it in between classes. We got in a bit of a fight, he came out of it a bit more hurt than me, and people took that as a sign that I was dangerous or something. That was that." 

 

Tyler frowned angrily. "What? I can't fucking believe- your friends all just left you, like that? When you needed somebody? What kind of twisted, messed up bullshit-" 

 

Josh set his hand on Tyler's arm to calm him down. "It doesn't matter. Not now, not anymore. I have somebody now. I have you, I have friends, and that's what counts, okay? Not that other stuff, not that shitty stuff. This, right now. You. And me. And everyone else." 

 

Tyler sighed. "It's just not fair. You're so great. You don't deserve any of that. I wish I came around earlier, just so I could... I could be there for you." 

 

Josh gave him a small smile. "The fact that you're here now... that's enough." 

 

Tyler felt like this was a moment was something important. He knew he wasn't imagining it when Josh's eyes flickered down to his lips. Butterflies erupted in his stomach. 

 

Of course, at that moment, the universe decided to cosmically kick him in the dick, because a crash of thunder sounded and whatever mood they just had going was ruined. 

 

Josh chuckled nervously. "Uh, we should probably get back."

 

Tyler mentally cursed literally every higher power he could think of. 

 

"Yeah. Let's do that."

 

They got up and began walking back towards the tree line. 

 

Tyler had a new mission, though. Josh was gay, and if whatever the hell just happened between them was anything to go by, he was at least slightly interested. 

 

And Tyler was going to act on that. 

 

Somehow. Eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright so lotsa stuff has been going on!!! so i wrote a new fic and i wanted to upload both that and this chapter on the same day but to do that i actually had to like...finish the new fic but its up now and yeah.  
> (((shameless self promo time)))  
> okay the fic is called [A Mask of My Disguise](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7479342/chapters/16998543) please check it out and leave kudos and stuff?? it would be really awesome and it would make me so so happy so please do that??  
> another thing!! my [tumblr](http://feelsgoodtobeunholy.tumblr.com/) is a thing that you should go check out, come say hi, etc. it'll make me really happy (i finally figured out how to link stuff) anyway i hope you have an out of this world day!! or night or whatever. see you later!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> patrick stump is the best person in the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY I TOOK SO LONG I'LL LEAVE A DETAILED LIST OF EXCUSES IN THE END NOTES but seriously i hope this chapter wasn't too bad sorry its just a filler i'll try to serve up some real content some time soon also sorry if its not very good im trying to get bck into the swing of writing n stuff :(

"Fuck you and your cheating, communist ass!" Tyler shouted as he mashed the buttons on the game controller. 

 

Patrick cackled as his character shot Tyler's in the back of the head. "You win some, you lose some, Tyler."

 

Tyler dropped the controller and narrowed his eyes at his friend, before picking it back up and pausing the game. 

 

"Okay, you know what, remember how I wanted to talk to you? Let's do that before I decide to fucking murder you." 

 

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Fine. Like you could kill me anyway, you can't even beat me in a video game." 

 

Tyler glared at him. "Okay, so, as I was saying," 

 

Patrick snorted. "Sorry, your highness, go on." 

 

"I, uh. I wanted ask you something." 

 

All mockery faded from Patrick's expression, and he sat up straighter and put on a 'I am a good, understanding friend' face. 

 

"What's up?" 

 

Tyler rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I like Josh. As more than a friend." 

 

Patrick stared at him blankly. "I'm short." 

 

Tyler gave him a questioning look. "What does that have to do with anything?" 

 

Patrick just blinked at him. "Sorry, I thought we were stating blatantly obvious things. Continue."

 

"Anyway, I want to ask him out," Tyler explained. 

 

"And you want my blessing? I'm sorry, I'm not following, what's the issue?" 

 

Tyler huffed exasperatedly. "I don't know how I'm supposed to do that."

 

"As the great, wise Shia Labeuf once said, just do it." 

 

Tyler stared at him, disgusted. "That is so stale, you should be ashamed of yourself." 

 

"Do you want my advice or not?" 

 

Tyler nodded. "Sorry, keep going." 

 

Patrick gave a self satisfied grin. "That's what I thought."

 

He continued, "Okay, anyway. Josh obviously has a thing for you. Like, have you even seen the way he looks at you? It's Mikey and Pete level sickening times one thousand." 

 

Tyler blushed. "Really?" 

 

Patrick rolled his eyes fondly and nodded. "Yeah. I can guarantee you that if you ask him out, he will say yes. You can do it!" 

 

Tyler smiled helplessly. "Thanks, man. But, like, how do I ask? I want to make it a thing, but not like a cheesy thing, you know?" 

 

"Actually, I don't, so all I'm gonna say is that no matter what you do, if you get your point across, you're gonna get yourself a boyfriend. Although, that means you can't be in the Single Person Club with me anymore, so I can't imagine why you'd want to do that." 

 

Tyler frowned. "But I need like, a game plan." 

 

Patrick raised an eyebrow. "Do you? Because I feel like it would come off a lot more genuine if you just went and asked or whatever when it felt right. Josh doesn't need some orchestrated sequence of events. That stuff only happens in movies and bad fanfiction." 

 

Tyler sighed. "I mean, I guess, but like. Planning. I just. I don't-" 

 

Patrick laughed lightly. "Just do yourself a favour, Ty. Don't over think this. You'll do fine." 

 

Tyler smiled weakly at him. "Thanks. You're really good at this. Remind me while you're still single again?" 

 

Patrick sighed and looked off into the distance (which, in this case, was the blank wall behind the TV). 

 

"If only I knew, Tyler. If only I knew."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay but before i really start... my new fic! i updated it and you know what that means ~shameless self promo time~ so it's called  
> [A Mask Of My Disguise](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7479342/chapters/17851015%22%22) and i dont think its that bad so if you were to, say, give it a read that would make me super duper happy. It's about summer camp! Yay!  
> oka y and then another self promo that you should probably expect by now. my [tumblr](http://feelsgoodtobeunholy.tumblr.com/) is a thing and you can come and talk to me and see that im not dead next time i go about a month without updating (hopefully that wont happen again tho)  
> okay now im gonna beg your forgiveness for that whole delay thing i feel really bad for making you wait like that i had no internet for like two weeks and then i got back and was just fucking around for a bit and school started back up and my life has been kind of crzy but hopefully once im back into the swing of things i'll have my shit together. thanks for being patient!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dont hate me??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT I ONLY HAVE ONE CHAPTER LEFT IF I DONT END UP DOING AN EPILOGUE????? WH A T???? anyway i hope you uh,,, like this one haha

"Are you ever going to tell me what this is about?" Josh asked exasperatedly. 

 

Tyler giggled, continuing to walk towards the woods. 

 

He broke into a run and Josh made a noise of protest, although a second later he heard the other boy running after him. 

 

He passed the tree line and went straight to the clearing where they had first met.

 

Phase one of his plan almost complete. 

 

When he finally got there, he simply flopped on to the ground, and looked up at a panting Josh. He rolled his eyes from where he was standing at Tyler before lowering himself down beside him.

 

"Seriously, I'm starting to think you've finally lost it. Maybe you ingested too much lipstick or something."

 

Without looking over at him, he wordlessly slapped Josh's arm, and waited a moment before blurting out what was on his mind. He had a habit of doing that when he was nervous.

 

"Do you ever feel like days are running together? Like, it just keeps going on and on and then you can't remember whether something happened on Tuesday or Wednesday and you don't know what it feels like to be out of this loop anymore?" Tyler asked. 

 

It was a couple of seconds before Josh replied.

 

"Honestly? I feel like days always are dragging on until I'm with you," he said. 

 

Tyler felt his face start burning. He had started this conversation in the hopes of getting existential, and now he was being wooed. 

 

"Well, shucks," he said, deciding to play it off with humour. 

 

He had no intention of hurrying this or deviating from the plan. Because if this didn't go along those the lines he'd carefully sketched out, he'd probably panic and move to like, Guatemala.

 

Or something like that. 

 

No offence to Guatemala. Tyler was sure that it was a lovely country. Probably a great place to hide from Josh Dun, at least.

 

"No, really. I just... when you're around, I feel like I can't stop smiling. It's something about you."

 

Wow, okay, who decided to unleash a herd of rabid butterflies in his stomach? It certainly wasn't Tyler. 

 

Ugh. Boys. 

 

Before he could think it through, he blurted, "You make me feel the same way. I knew you were special, from that first moment in the cafeteria." 

 

Josh snorted. "I'm really nothing special, but... thank you." 

 

They lied there, soaking in the fall sun for what felt like hours, when Tyler felt something grab his hand.

 

Not something, someone. 

 

Josh. 

 

Josh was holding his hand. 

 

There went all of Tyler's self control and remaining sanity, right out the window. 

 

Caution to the wind, he laced his fingers through Josh's. He felt like the moment was right, that this was the time, that it could happen now, it should happen now.

 

Clearly Josh felt the same, considering the fact that the past few minutes actually happened. 

 

Pushing back his nerves, all of his doubts, all of his fears, he asked the question that he had come up with days before after his conversation with Patrick. 

 

"Do you know how to dance?"

 

He turned his head to look at the other boy, not at all surprised to see Josh had done the same. 

 

"Why?" he asked, curiosity thick in his voice. 

 

Tyler shrugged as innocently as he could while lying on the ground.

 

"Just answer the question."

 

Josh blinked at him. "Uh, a little? I had to go to my aunt's wedding a couple of years ago, and I had to take lessons, but I was never any good at it." 

 

Tyler nodded resolutely. 

 

Good enough. 

 

He rummaged through his pocket with his free hand until he found his phone, and took it out. He scrolled until he found the playlist him and Patrick had painstakingly constructed after brainstorming for a couple of hours. 

 

His thumb hovering over the play button, he decided to let Josh in on what he had planned. "Let's do it, then." 

 

Josh made a strangled gasping noise. "W-what? Dance?" 

 

Tyler nodded, and Josh immediately began trying to dissuade him. "You really don't want to do that, I'm really bad at it. I'll step on your toes. I'll fall over." 

 

Tyler grunted and pulled himself up, taking Josh with him as a result of them still holding hands. 

 

"Don't care. It's happening. I want to dance."

 

Josh huffed as Tyler hit the play button before lightly dropping his phone into the grass. 

 

He had to get them to start dancing fast, because there were only two songs on the playlist (Patrick thought it would be motivation for Tyler to kiss him sooner rather than later. Tyler thought it could get awkward to aimlessly dance alone in a forest for an hour.) 

 

tHe put his hand on Josh's hip and kept their fingers entwined, Josh doing the same with his free hand.

 

He began moving them to the beat, a step to the left, a step to the right. 

 

They moved together well, apart from the fact that Josh stepped on his toes every other beat. 

 

Josh looked up from the ground for the first time since they started dancing as the second song came on and nervously made eye contact with Tyler. He grinned at him, and Tyler couldn't help but laugh.

 

He never would have guessed that this would happen the first time he walked into the woods, but he's sure glad he decided to go for that walk all those weeks ago.

 

He began humming the chorus of the song, and the humming turned into singing.

 

Josh's mouth dropped open, and Tyler realised what he was doing, and dropped his eyes down to where he had his hand on Josh's hip, feeling his face getting hot.

 

"Sorry," he apologised.

 

"Don't be, that was... I didn't know you could sing." 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "Barely."

 

Josh stopped moving with him and untangled their fingers, using his newly freed hand to tilt Tyler's chin up so he's meet his eyes. The playlist ended.

 

"Don't sell yourself short, okay? You're amazing." 

 

Josh's face was earnest, and Tyler felt his lips twitch into a small smile. 

 

This was it. This was the moment. 

 

Before he could decide against it, Tyler leaned forward, closing the distance between the two of them, and kissed him. 

 

It took a moment for Josh to kiss back, one that was filled with uncertainty that made Tyler wonder if he should pull away or not, but then the other boy's lips began moving against his own, and everything was perfect. 

 

Until it wasn't. 

 

Josh stepped back, putting space between them. 

 

"Uh," Tyler said awkwardly. 

 

Josh shook his head. "This was not what I had planned," Josh said forcefully. "I'll see you on Monday, don't worry too much about it, okay?" he continued, before running off back from where they had come. 

 

Tyler stood there, one hand still in the air, eyes wide. "Well, shit," he said plaintively. 

 

That... was not what was supposed to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry?? feel free to yell at me in the comments or on my [tumblr](http://feelsgoodtobeunholy.tumblr.com/)   
> (((shameless self promo not very hidden within apology)))   
> also go read my other fic that i have been talking about for my last three chapters or so its called [A Mask Of My Disguise](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7479342/chapters/16998543) its a summer camp fic and if you like frerard, petekey, or ryden you might like that fic. thank you so so much for reading this, i appreciate it so much, and i hope you have a great night!! or day. y'know.


	16. The End!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some things are worked out and i feel bad for taking so long

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its been a while! and now this fic is done! i hope the ending is what you've been hoping for and thanks for reading?? sorry this was such a long wait and um,,, thanks for everything!

Monday was already kicking Tyler's ass, although this time it had less to do with it being, y'know, Monday, and a bit more to do with the fact that he'd been lowkey turned down by the boy he had been crushing on for months. 

 

The worst part was that it was after a damn good kiss, so he couldn't even savour that memory. 

 

Now he had to muster the willpower to be capable of making eye contact with Josh, telling Patrick the gritty details of what had happened, and being a living, functioning human being.

 

Ugh. Boys. 

 

From the moment Tyler woke up he was already dreading going to school, but it wasn't like his mom would let him skip, so he had to march on to the gallows. 

 

The entire walk there he dragged his feet, and things decided to get even shittier the moment he stepped through the doors. 

 

First, some asshole decided to trip him as he was walking down the hallway to his locker, making him drop everything. 

 

Then, after he got to the locker, he found somebody had decided to expand their artistic skill set on the small metal door by writing 'FAG' in big block letters with a doodle of a cock and balls beside it. 

 

Those things were always fun. At least they knew how to spell.

 

Tyler glared at the picture of Mikey and Pete taped to the locker next to his. Why couldn't he just be happy like them? Instead, he had to get his heart broken (okay, maybe he was being a bit dramatic) in the middle of the woods by a pretty boy with red hair.

 

"Fuck this so much," he groaned, banging his head against his locker. 

 

"Rough weekend?" A voice that Tyler found belonged to Mikey after he whirled around making an embarrassing squealing noise asked. 

 

After he calmed down, he sighed, "You have no idea." 

 

Mikey shrugged. "I'm guessing it had something to do with Josh? Like, maybe you had decided to confess how you felt but he turned you down or something so now you don't know how to face him today?" 

 

Tyler blinked at him for a second before responding dully, "That was uncanny."

 

"Patrick sent me screenshots of you keyboard smashing Josh's name over the weekend and filled me in on the plan you two came up with."

 

"Of course he did," Tyler said. That made a little more sense than Mikey secretly being psychic, although it was still a possibility. 

 

Mikey walked up to his locker and opened it, continuing to talk. "So what happened?"

 

"I don't even know," Tyler groaned. "Everything was great, we kissed, and then he just ran off."

 

Mikey furrowed his eyebrows, one of the most extreme reactions Tyler had ever seen from him. "Did he say anything before he left?"

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "Yeah, he said that it wasn't what he had planned and told me not to worry about it. Like, what the hell? In what universe would I not worry about something like this?" 

 

Mikey stared at him for a second before saying, "Did you consider the fact that he had planned a way to make a move on you and that he freaked out when you kissed so he just left?" 

 

Tyler huffed, "Or maybe he's just not into me and I freaked him out?"

 

At that, Mikey actually burst out laughing, which was probably the most shocking and surprising thing that Tyler had ever had happen to him. 

 

He stopped abruptly and said, "No. A blind, senile, German speaking Fox News reporter could tell that he's into you."

 

Tyler stared at him. "That's oddly specific."

 

"And it's also not the point. You need to talk to him before you two idiots can screw this up even more."

 

Tyler looked at his friend hopefully. "Do you really think this could work out?"

 

Mikey threw his hands up in the air. "Of course it will! Now go find Josh and be a gross old married couple." 

 

Not waiting to point out that him and Pete were more of a gross old married couple that Tyler could ever dream for Josh and himself to be, he ran off down the hallway.

 

He had a boy to win over.

 

\----------dividery divider------------

 

By the time lunch came around, he was no further with Josh than he had been that morning.

 

He hadn't seen him all day, and apparently no one else had either. 

 

All he had accomplished was taking some half assed notes in one of his classes and gaining a sympathetic pat on the back from Patrick. 

 

He was on his way back to his locker to go get his lunch money, which he had left there earlier in his haste to go find Josh when he heard footsteps behind him. 

 

Reminded of an afternoon a few weeks ago when he had been caught alone in the hallway with a homophobe, he whirled around and let out a squeak of surprise when he saw who it was. 

 

Standing in front of him, smiling sheepishly with one hand behind his back, was Josh Dun.

 

"J-josh!" Tyler stammered, surprised.

 

"Hi, Tyler," the other boy said shyly. 

 

"Where have you been? I've been looking for you all day, I wanted to talk to you abou-" 

 

"Well that's good, because I want to talk to you too!" Josh interrupted. "But first, to answer your question, I wasn't here. I wanted to get something before I saw you."

 

Tyler swallowed his nervousness down. "You can talk first. I've been waiting all day, I think I can handle a few more minutes."

 

Josh beamed. "Great! First, I just wanted to apologise for the weekend. I shouldn't have run off like that, you just kind of threw me off because I was already , uh..." 

 

Tyler, feeling like his heart was about to pound out of his chest, urged him on with a wavering voice. "You were already what?" 

 

Josh shifted uncomfortably, refusing to meet the other boy's eyes.

 

"I was already trying to figure out a way to ask you out. I've liked you for a while, and I didn't expect you to- to, y'know, and I kind of panicked and ran off, and, uh, yeah, thats about it?"

 

Tyler stared at him blankly, not even saying a word. 

 

Josh, obviously noticing this, laughed awkwardly and took his hand out from behind his back, holding a couple of blue flowers. 

 

"I brought you these? Because, you like flowers and stuff, so I thought you would appreciate them, and... oh no. You're not saying anything. Did I do something wrong?" 

 

Tyler rolled his eyes up to the heavens. "Josh, you ran off and left me freaking out about whether I made you hate me or not all weekend for no reason. I'm so-"

 

Unable to even finish his sentence, he face palmed so hard you could hear the slapping sound from all the way down the hall. 

 

Josh's smile wavered. "Please don't be mad? I swear, I didn't mean to make you worry, I'm really sorry, oh my god, don't hate me, I just-"

 

"Josh," Tyler said exasperatedly.

 

Josh stopped talking immediately and looked at him hopefully. 

 

"Come here." 

 

Josh did as he was told and walked over, and Tyler moved to meet him, closing the distance between them. 

 

As soon as Josh was in grabbing distance, Tyler's hand shot out and pulled him into a kiss. 

 

The angle was a bit awkward and their teeth clacked together at first, but they managed to figure it out after a couple of seconds. 

 

After a moment they had to come up for air and Tyler smiled at Josh softly. "I'm not mad. Well, I am, but not like, super mad, so there's that." 

 

Josh stared at him for a couple of seconds before breaking out into a relieved smile. "Good. That's... that's uh, really good. 

 

Tyler took the flowers that were still in his hand. "Thanks for the flowers. I like the colour. They're pretty neat."

 

"I had to get those before I came. I thought you'd like them," Josh said, pleased. 

 

Tyler backed away, clutching the flowers and forgetting all about his lunch money. "Let's go back to the lunch table, before Pete sends out a search party for me." 

 

Josh laughed lightly. "That's probably a good idea." 

 

Tyler laced their fingers together, and they walked off to the cafeteria together.

 

Tyler certainly wasn't expecting this to happen when he moved, but he figured that he was pretty happy with the outcome. It was certainly a lot better than he had dared to hope for.

 

After all, he had a great group of fucking weird friends, a cute boyfriend (wait, was Josh his boyfriend now? He probably should ask. That might be important), and a few nice flowers. 

 

What more could he want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the first time i've ever finished a fanfic so this is kind of a surreal experience for me. i never expected this to do so well when i first started writing this but now here i am and its kind of weird?? i've been working on this for so long and it's just like so strange to kind of brush my hands off and say 'hey, this is a completed thing that you just did that over six hundred human people read and liked', i dont know why people liked it? this is kind of a shitpost lets be real but hey! i probably would have never had the motivation for finishing this if it hadn't been for so many people liking it. i really am sorry this took so long to update (i ended up saying that way too much) and i have a few other ongoing fics which i dont know what to do with so if you want to check those out you should! my [tumblr](http://feelsgoodtobeunholy.tumblr.com/) is a thing so you should totally come say hi! see me cry about yuri on ice and emo bands! it'll be fun! anyway its been lit thanks for the stuff  
> ~a later thought~  
> i saw someone had posted this without asking me on wattpad??? i do not have a wattpad and i kind of really hate wattpad so??? anything of mine thats on there is not from me... i dont want to start beef with anyone but,,, please don't repost my fics on a different platform than the one that i use without crediting me? i thought that kind of went without saying but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
